My Sunglasses

I love my sunglasses. I really, really do. This is the third or fourth variation on the same basic theme. Big. I mean extraordinarily big. Like Jackie O on steroids big. And white. They absolutely have to be white.


I don't for an instant think that I look good in them. Seriously, I look like they're eating my face. But I love them. I love them because they're hard to misplace. I love them because they're annoyingly stupid. But most of all, the real reason why I love them and why I've bought the same kind for three or four years now....?


Here. The original Willy Wonka Sunglass. I've looked, but I can't find these exact ones. I realize that what I keep coming up with is a sad ghost of the original, but I make do with what I have.

Dang. Now I'm going to have to take a picture of me in my glasses, posed just like Willy up there.

But anyway. Why do I write this? Why do I write this now? Simple. The reason I'm now on WWS no. 3 (or 4) is because my children have broken WWS nos. 1-2 (or 3). Each pair has ended its faithful service at the angry, chubby hands of one of my children, and I can hear this pair's clock ticking. So I wanted to express my gratitude for its three months of awesomeness.

Viva la Willy Wonka Sunglasses!

Random Picture

Grandma and the older two. Dang, that is quite a collection of dishes in front of them.

Destin no. Four: The People

Erinn and I would like to present, for your entertainment, a series of pictures with no binding theme other than they were all taken in Destin OF family IN Destin (and, actually, Erinn doesn't know I'm dragging her into this....)


Everyone at that weirdo bar with all the dollars taped to the ceiling.


Me. I'm gorgeous. And the only one in the immediate family who knows how to work the camera.


Lotus and Gabriel pose in front of the house's elevator. That's right. The house's elevator.


Ken and Gabriel at one of the state parks I dragged us to. In the heat. In hopes of finding new birds. Which we didn't.


Joaquin, gearing up for his first year as an official homeschooler. He's got the uniform down pat.


More hot and miserable state park pics.


Dad and Ken, relaxing by the pool.


Lotus shows us the portable underwater pool stools.


Look! Uncle Jerry is taking a picture of me, taking a picture of him!!!


Auntie Terrie guards Joaquin from the terrifying surf.


Erinn, Kelly, Mom, Auntie Terrie, Joaquin, and Dave.

Destin no. Three: The Fishing

One of the days was spent fishing. We managed to pile some 16 people onto a boat, and off we went. Most of us took some sort of motion sickness pill. Those of us who didn't (and even those of us who did) wished, at some point, that we had. But it was a beautiful day to feel sick at sea!


Yeah, that's me, fishing. With a baby on my back.


Lotus is sunburnt. But no signs of sea sickness, and never ever took anything for it. What a champ!


Erinn, and Jim and Sami all reel one in. Or are reeling. I'm not sure.


Ken baits a line.


Ken caught this many. Single handedly.

Happy Birthday, Gabriel!

Happy second birthday, Gabriel! Here is YOUR birthday montage, full of things that you like:


Play doh. And look! It's already been formed into pieces small enough for you to stick up your nose, another "favorite" of yours!


Baby Jude! Since the day you first saw him, he's been one of your very favorite things -er- people.

Airplanes! You're like Radar O'Reily with those things, you can hear them before anyone else.


And finally, your very, very favorite thing: Yelling and Throwing Things.

Happy birthday baby. We love you. We really do.

Happy Birthday, Joaquin!

Happy fourth birthday, Joaquin. And here's your yearly birthday montage of some of your favorite things:

Yes. Chainsaws. What four year old doesn't love chainsaws?


Bulldozers.


Trains. Ones that are too big for your brother to throw at you are a special favorite.


Police officers, totally ready to shoot bad guys. And trees.



Tractors. Specifically, John Deere tractors.

We love you, Joaquin.

More Tomorrow

Ok, I'm tired of blogging for today. I'll post more tomorrow. But I just wanted to leave everyone with what may be my new favorite picture of Ken and myself:

Destin no. Two: The Renewal of the Vows

It was Auntie Terrie and Uncle Jerry's 40th wedding anniversary. So, with the help of two newly ordained ministers in the Universal Unitarian Church of the Internet, (i.e. Erinn and Kelly), they renewed their vows on the beach:


Auntie Terrie, ever ready to thumb her nose at society, dons red for ther vow renewal.


Erinn and Auntie Terrie on the way to the beach. Auntie Terrie tries her best to hide her bridal butterflies.


Auntie Terrie is first with her vows. She manages to mention the words "list" and "tablet" at least one time each.


Uncle Jerry is next. The University of Michigan figures heavily.


The happy couple, forty years later, enjoying sun, surf, sand, and family.


Dave takes pictures while Pat and Bob look on.

It was one of the best vow renewals I've ever been to. Here's to another forty.

(just had to get one of me in there)

Destin no. One: The House

Finally, pictures from vacation. It's been so long that I've ALMOST worked off the five pounds I put on there, but it was so worth the expansion in the waistline. A person could easily get used to living in a 4 million dollar home, with a gourmet chef in residence, and the Gulf a mere 100 paces away...


The house. Four stories, four million dollars. A million dollars per storey?


Lotus takes a leisurely stroll up to the fourth floor's widow walk. Views of the Gulf, anyone?


View of the pool from the widow's walk.


View of the Gulf from the widow's walk.

It was an amazing house. It sure make coming home a bit of a shock. At least I'd remembered to make the bed before we left. That was a nice touch.

Two Months, and 113 Pictures Later, I'm All Caught Up

Everyone is taking a nap. What the hell? It's awesome. So I have no excuse to avoid uploading pictures and posting them. Here you go. It's gonna be a glut. Go refill your coffee, and enjoy.

My new godson, Dominic Alexander Trouy:


He didn't love my flash going off in his face so much.



He was a peanut at 7 pounds, 9 ounces or something like that. It was a rough one for mother and child, but all are home from the hospital and adjusting nicely.

Joaquin's Future Plans Begin In Two Days

Exchange between Joaquin and myself, 11:30 a.m., on the way to Wal-Mart:

J: Mama?
M: Yes?
J: I know what I'm going to be when I grow up.
M: You do?
J: Yes. Because it's my birthday in two days. And I'll be four. That's the same age as Benjamin. So I will be a grownup.
M: Good for you! At least someone in this car will be, then.
J: I will be a farmer and a daddy.
M: You're consistent. That's a nice grownup trait.
J: And a police officer. And I will shoot all the bad guys that try to come near you.
M: All the ones that try to come near me?
J: Yeeeeaaaaaah. I will protect you from the bad guys. And the bad soldiers. I will shoot them too.
M: That's so sweet. But how will you know they're bad guys and bad soldiers?
J: Because they will be trying to hurt you. So I will shoot them.
M: Right. I don't think police officers shoot people as much as you're thinking. It's something one should usually try to avoid, even in a law enforcement setting.
J: I will also shoot trees.
M: Trees?
J: Trees. Some polices shoot trees.
M: Really? Weird. Why don't you leave the trees alone. They give us lots of good things.
J: Ok. Instead, I will shoot bees.
M: Bees? Why?
J: Because they sting you.
M: None of them are stinging me now. Don't shoot the bees. They're useful.
J: No! They sting people. All the time.
M: Have you ever been stung?
J: .....(silence).....oh! And I will be a construction worker.
M: Sorry?
J: When I grow up. I will be a farmer and a daddy and a police officer and a construction worker.
M: That's a lot of things. Good thing you're getting started so early.
J: Yeaaaah. In two days.

Another Gabriel Litany

Gabriel's activites in the past 40 hours:

1. attempted to drown himself in the pool by walking off the steps without proper flotation devices.
2. repeatedly- repeatedly- stuck wadded up strips of shredded Kleenex up his nose, then proudly presented himself to me for their removal.
3. mildly electrocuted himself by sticking a screw into the only uncovered socket in the house.
4. flung his older brother to the floor violently in a fit of Cheerio-theft induced fury.
5. gleefully uttered both the words "shit" and "ass" at least half dozen times.
6. angrily grabbed my face in his hands and attempted to bite my chin, Hannibal Lecter-style.
7. pulled several of Ken's accent lights out of the ground, used them as swords, then flung them around the front yard, willy-nilly.

If you need me, I'll be in a bottle of tequila somewhere.

I Love To Go Swimming With Bull Legged Women...

...and swim between their legs.

Other than swimming, there's nothing that ties that song with this post, and now that I've written it down it's stuck in my head. Awesome.

I'm off to take four kids to the pool. By myself. And only one of them is watersafe. And we're missing a floatie, so Gabriel will only halfway float. The other half will sink under the water.

It's going to be ugly. But they're driving me crazy stuck in the house, and Ranger Rick keeps insisting that they need a "Green Hour" every day. Every day?! Heaven help me.

God's Feet

"What the hell is in the fridge?" this is Ken.


Hours later....

"Dang! What is that in the fridge??" this time, me.

There was something nasty in the refrigerator. Seriously, grotesquely nasty. Imagine a smell that starts off as rotten pineapple, then finishes dead mouse. Yeah. Gross. And it was in our fridge.

So I'm up first. I just take a garbage bag and start chucking things with a dubious expiration date. No smelling, no discernment, just "You seem to have been in here for an awfully long time, let's go ahead and throw you out."

No improvement.

Ken's next. He's more methodical. He takes out each shelf, each drawer and has me run hot water over it, then bleach.

No improvement.

Whatevs. I go away to the other side of the state for four days, and let me tell you, the refrigerators in the Smokies smell just fine. I forget about the whole sordid affair.

Until I get home.

"Dang baby! What the hell?" I yell at Ken when I open the fridge for the first time upon return. "I think it's a dead mouse. A mouse must have crawled up behind the drawers and died." Ken isn't buying my dead mouse theory, but he dutifully removes each drawer and looks for any rodent death activity, nonetheless.

No improvement.

Later that day, Ken is badgering me to cook the Bobby Flay recipe "Carmelized Onions and Camembert Quesadilla with Apple Chutney" that we'd tried a while back. All the ingredients were there, it was just a matter of me finding the motivation to actually make chutney again. I surveyed the landscape, idly smelling things as I went.

And then I hit the cheese.

It smelled like ammonia. Like death. And the $10 price tag reminded me that I couldn't just instantly throw it out.

"Hey Ken," I drawled to my husband who was upstairs on the computer. "Can you check and see if camembert is a stinky cheese? 'Cause I think I found the source of our refrigerator stink."

He does. Within minutes it is reported to me that camembert is ranked as the second most stinky cheese in the world, and its stink has earned it the nickname, "God's Feet". Seems fitting.

Lucky it's so delicious.

Oh, and it got me a sparkling clean refrigerator out of the deal. I figure I'm a winner all around on that one.

check it out:
http://blog.hotelclub.com/top-10-stinky-cheeses/

Oh man. Now I can post entries from my phone. I wonder if I can upload pictures, too? Let's see.

Test.

When Big Fat Lists Come Up and Bite You In Your Big Fat Butt

I made a sublist, based on the list in the previous post. It was labeled "Things to Get Done on Saturday/Sunday", and it only had 5 items on it.
Of course, one item was "paint Lotus' room". And another was "set up Lotus' room/schoolroom". But on paper it looked totally friendly. Honestly, I figured Ken would knock out the paint job on Saturday, and I could give my daughter the gift of a room and a bed to herself by Sunday.

But then someone went and got sick on me. Someone got so sick he called into work on Friday and spent the day in bed. Someone then managed to keep their color looking wan for the entire weekend, and so I was suddenly left holding the paint roller. I was suddenly left setting up a room all by myself. And then, just as the cherry on top of it all, I put together the boys' bunk bed- by myself- this afternoon.

I'm dog tired. Beat down. I need to reassess the scope of all future lists. Or else make sure someone is good and healthy beforehand.