A kiss is still a kiss

Today's assignment was "Reflections".

Miss Ky kisses everything: flowers, rocks, clothes, spiky plants and her own reflection. I'm just happy that she's happy with the image that stares back at her. I wonder how long that will last before the media tells her she's not thin enough, beautiful enough or talented enough?

THIS is an American Rambling Season 2

Since we're on the subject (American Idol, keep up people), what was wrong with Adam's version of "A Ring of Fire"?

Seriously, I like Johnny Cash (especially when he looks like Joaquin Phoenix) as much as anyone, but I wouldn't want to hear his song sung like him by anyone but him.

I kind of liked the acid-trip slant Adam had. It reminded me of my teenhood. Not inferring I was tripping on acid in my teens, but be realistic, the rest of the world around me was and there was some great tunes born from it. Starship anyone?

Music has a way of catapulting me into memories I thought were long forgotten.

Never mind whatever "Midnight At the Oasis" was about (what was it about?). Play that song and I'm immediately thrown back in time lying next to my dad's battery operated radio staring at the stars in the night sky (because in the day sky they're harder to see).

Helen Reddy? I was ready to roar and burn my bra. It was just poor timing since I didn't even own one yet.

"Bennie and the Jets".
A movie. I'm watching a movie in the dinky theater of my small town.
A movie I didn't quite understand but it had a heavy feeling to it. Anyone have any ideas what that might have been? I remember rain and maybe a teenage guy and girl.
I watched a lot of movies I didn't understand, I'm thinking a little more adult supervision might have been good.

"Magnet and Steel". I'm around 14-15 and my best friend has met an older guy that went by the name of Steel. He used to sing "You are a maggot and I am Steel". I never met the guy, but his version is stuck in my head.

Michael Jackson's Thriller album.
Sigh.
Dreamy David Chavez is standing at my front door holding his newly purchased MJ album, nervously saying goodnight (will he kiss me? ) and that prized album slips from it's cardboard cover (showcasing Michael's shining white socks) and rolls haphazardly down my front lawn. The magic of the moment gone.


So Adam Lambert is not Johnny Cash. Was it really so surprising?
The things is, he evoked a reaction. Good or bad, you remembered him. I'm just happy to be remembering.

I downloaded it. It's fun watching my kids watching me, wondering why I'm smiling.


Addendum: The movie was Aloha Bobby and Rose. Tagline: "Bobby has a '68 Camaro. Rose has a five-year-old kid. On their first date, they become lovers and fugitives". Now there's a good movie for a 10 year-old to see. Please refer to earlier comment of maybe having more parental supervision? Sorry if I just filled up your reader with two of the same post.

THIS is an American Rambling

In all of my spare time, I found another place I think you should visit and you should visit before Thursday so that you can all participate in:





I Should Be Folding Laundry speaks to me in so many ways, but I'm linking you in particular to her American Idol post.

It's titled "American Idol Recap, 24 hours late" which I find funny because I WATCH it 24 hours late... hold on a minute, I think I watch it 48 hours late and I can NOT phone in and stop you crazy Americans from keeping people like Tatiana on the show.

Useless trivia about me that may surprise you, since I know I emanate peace, harmony and patience (did you just spit your pepsi on the keyboard?):

I don't wait for the show to come on to tell me who has been voted off. I cheat.
I go online.
Then I fast-foward Ryan's silly stalling tactics feeling all smug and warm inside.

Several times I have decided that I'm over American Idol (maybe from
my experience of NEVER picking the winner) (ok, I did pick last year's but
they both had the same name, how hard was it?) so I go into each season
thinking I'm just going to watch the auditions.
It's a guilty pleasure isn't it?
Laughing at people who have more courage than I do to follow their dreams.

And does this year really have some amazing talent, or is it just me-- desperate for entertainment?

Also fast-forwarded are performances that make me uncomfortable. You know, the song you're holding your breath all the way through because he/she just doesn't seem to be in sync with the band, or maybe a little flat.

I never watch the group's lip-synced performances or the pompous peacocks ("stars") being spotlighted (Randy Travis is exempt, I was thinking in particular of one diva from last year whose name rhymes with Pariah Hairy).

Sometimes I fast-forward through the judges comments (please Paula, just sit and look pretty. I really don't want to hear you talk anymore until you're off the painkillers, k? Just sayin'...).

Oh, when you call in, are you really thinking, "She looked good tonight so she has my vote!"? (sorry, another dig at Paula).

Have you ever stood and clapped...

all alone in your living room?
Yeah, I feel stupid afterwards, but sometimes, I can't help it.

I love my SkyPlus box (Tivo equivalent). I never knew American Idol could be so fun (when you eliminate the ridiculous bits).


Bet you sometimes wish you had a Skybox blog reader to forward through my ramblings...

When Computers Collide

Karen at The Rocking Pony needs to see garden pictures, but my macbaby and her computer aren't compatible.
Therefore, we're all taking a tour... you don't mind do you?

Just think of it like being the younger sibling again. You know, the poor kid that gets dragged to every piano recital, band performance and horribly boring basketball game (what IS that smell?) and gets told, "Just hush, we'll be going home soon" (soon meaning within the week).

The tour:
Let's look out over the garden from upstairs first:

This is from Miss Ky's room looking down on the center point of the garden.

Look a little to the left...

and a little more to the left...oooh, ahhh.

If we were magic and could fly down there, this is what it'd look like from that angle.

BUT we can't fly, so quick!

Back downstairs.

This is one of the little "paths" that have been created with the shrub features...

There's several of these maze-like hiding spots and they all have something different to reveal. One has an apple tree, one has a huge flowering bush (which at the moment is NOT flowering and in need of a haircut), and one has a large twisting tree with a bench just underneath waiting for me to plop a squat on it with a great book...sometime around August.

Let's head back to the house.
stinking moles.

Now we'll start on the patio area.

Seriously, you're already tired? Have you seen a doctor about that?

(we're walking backwards, but you'll be fine, I moved the balls out of the way)

If you go to the right and walk up the steps back to the garden level, you get here:

On the right of this is the other pond-- very overgrown with water lillies and pampas grass

from above that pond.

Can you imagine what it will look like cleaned up and blooming?!

And isn't the weather crazy here, sunny one minute and frosty the next?

No, these pictures weren't from the same day, or even the same month for that matter.

See, it didn't take that long and you didn't even have to suffer that sweaty sock smell from the gymnasium.

I'm still taking reservations for the summer.

LIGHT The Corners of My Mind

Mother's have terrible storage capacity for memories.

I dare you to challenge me.
How many of you swore at the Hubby during a 12-hour labor, only to then swear your undying love as you both held the newborn close and happily sobbed?

My first labor (nearly 21 years ago) started Thursday and ended Saturday morning-- with forceps and a fourth degree tear, after Pitocin was administered half-way through.
Sunday morning my doctor laughed when I said, "NEVER AGAIN" and in his patronizingly, yet fatherly way pronounced, "In six months you will have forgotten all of this".
(Six months postpartum I made sure that I informed him I hadn't forgotten. TEN YEARS it took me to "forget").

But in contrast, I look forward to every weekend. Every school holiday. Summer vacation.

Friday afternoons I'm giddy as I contemplate skipping down the lane with my children in anticipation to "popcorn and movie night" and a lie in the morning.
I calculate the saturday morning chores that we will tackle as a team before 9 am, leaving the rest of the sunny day to play in the garden, explore the countryside or sit on the seashore. I envision a clean house and happy children hosting hoards of smiling friends.

But saturday rolls in and I have been joined by not one child before 7 am, but 2.
I then have to groggily dive into the breakfast chaos, but hurriedly because we have to be driving away for swim lessons by 8.30.

Saturday is also the only day to get everyone's hair cut since all other days someone has some commitment elsewhere. Three boys with haircuts takes quite a bit of time (and no, we don't cut hair every saturday, but some saturdays are filled with football games).

By noon they are "bored", rude and insolent, but their hair looks good.

I get eye-rolling responses at my brilliant idea to sweep through the house like Mary Poppins to complete tasks at hand and even a full-on argument of why it's too much effort for the 5 year-old to carry that one dropped sock the rest of the way to the laundry room.

After I have watched their brains travel as if by a Star Trek transporter beam into the tv and I insist they head out into the sun, I become public enemy number one.

I can remember all of this now because it is 5:39 pm on a beautiful Saturday of heavy sighs, bickering and boredom.

Tomorrow, on Mothering Sunday, this memory will be gone because I will open my eyes to smiling, laughing children that have cooked my breakfast and painted wonderful cards for me to treasure into my old(er) age. I will then have 6 days to prepare for all of the glorious things we can do and see over the weekend.

...misty, water colored memories, of the way we were..."

I Think My White Board Is Lying To Me

Thursday:
9.30 am meeting at RA's.
4.00 Bus pick up
6.30 pick up A1 from friend, H's
7.30 Horticultural Meeting at WI Hall.

It's 2.30 and I have this nagging feeling I really should be somewhere...

I hope I figure out where it is soon.

The Way I Fill My Days, in Photos

One day of this:

What are they looking at?

oh.

Three days of this:

That fancy-footed blue guy is mine...

Michael Jackson wanna be?
Nope, apparently a red glove helps with Frog and Newt catching.


And many days like these:

Equals a perfect week.

Well... nearly perfect except that for
64 days now
someone has been missing from our photos...

Miss Ky, My Wish For You

Is that one day
you will have a little girl
whose smile outshines
the sun's rays dripping through
Spring buds

My wish for you
is that when you do have that little girl
you'll be old enough
to know that nothing else matters
when there's a book to be treasured
or clothes to try on
(even the ones that have just been put away)

My wish for you
is that you'll have
A little girl who shouts enthusiastically
"A castle!"
when you're driving past an old church

A little girl to make you see
the world from her eyes
as often as possible

Whose chubby little girl legs
(as only little girls can have)
will be churning away at the path
while she shouts in joy, "You
can't catch me"
you worry that she'll fall
again

A little girl
who will fill your world
with uninhibited giggling
and mounds of laundry


My wish for you
is that one day
your little girl
whose inquisitiveness is matchless
will walk ahead of you
stopping only to hug the flowers
and you'll tear up with the beauty of it

My wish for you
is that God will give you
something you didn't even know you were longing for
and fill you with love
that only a little girl can give.





Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

News That Probably Matters to No one but Me

I didn't lose any followers over the black tongue post!

A GP is calling for chocolate to be taxed. Is stoning still legal? Because anyone who wants to mess with my chocolate could find himself with a lumpy forehead.

The Harry Potter trailer is great, now get on with releasing it already.

I sang with the radio today. I sang. I had a voice and my throat didn't hurt for the first time in over a month. Woo hOOt! Several emergency vehicles passed by me and I have to wonder if there's any corelation to my singing and whatever terrible thing occurred in my wake.

I bought Miss Ky a Dora book to go on her My First LeapPad today. The one we got rid of a long time ago.

Have you read Stephanie's Product X post yet? It's about shopping lists and unmentionables. It made me realize that...

I don't write "toilet paper" on my shopping lists. I have this insane fear that if I drop that list, someone will know I actually do something that needs toilet paper. TP is still a bit too obvious.
Laugh all you want, but it's not that far off of running a tap in the bathroom so the
people outside can't hear you using the toilet.

Or being embarrassed when your kids let someone in the door without telling you and you exit from the bathroom with that surprised look on your face.

Forget writing tampons.

That goes down as "Fem" for feminine hygiene product. That way the finder of the list thinks I was really reminding myself to go by the Federal Emergency Management Agency building
or to set the tivo to catch the Norwegian TV Channel.

Can you imagine when I move into Depends?
With the rate my brain cells are degenerating I won't even have a good enough memory for an abbreviation at that point. "Oh, there's "dep" on my list.. was I needing a motocross exhaust pipe or was that so that I remembered to stop by the Dept. of Environmental Protection? It seems I remember going there last week and no one there knew who I was..."

and the followers start dropping like flies....

Side Effects

The antibiotic that I am currently taking the correct dosage for, warns of a risk of these side effects:

Upset stomach, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea (better than Gonorrhea) and mouth sores.

"Mouth sores for ten, Alex..."

"I'll take your vomiting and raise you a sore throat". Not a bad trade for a person who was medicating just to swallow pureed foods.

Then there is this little note:

"Although this effect is uncommon, you may develop a black, 'hairy' tongue while taking this medication. This effect is harmless and usually goes away after treatment."

What the...?

Now that I'm on the marathon antibiotic program (I was told my inability to read means that the 8 days of medication were just for fun, I get to start the ten days of proper dosage all over again). I will have EIGHTEEN days of possibly acquiring a BLACK HAIRY TONGUE.

Adobe Photo Shop allows us to see how I MAY end up looking.

Good thing the Hubby will be away for a while.

What risks are you taking this week?

Why Old People Should Never Be Left On Their Own

I have been sick. I neglected my children and the Hubby (and facebook and my blog) while I tried to battle whatever it was threatening to hold me under and strangle me in my sleep.

Seriously, I was sick.

It probably didn't help that I stood in the rain for an hour and a half to watch one of the boys play football. That was day 8 of a throat so sore I had to take Motrin an hour prior to eating anything, just so that I could eat.

Have you ever read the back of medicine bottles (you know, NyQuil, Tylenol Sore Throat etc...) ? All say that if you have a sore throat for more than 2-3 days, you should see a doctor.

So day 9, I saw a doctor. That doctor sent me to the lab where they drew enough blood to feed the entire Cullen family for a week (maybe I'm exaggerating slightly).
I honestly couldn't tell you what the tests were for, but I do know that he called me to say that all of those tests were negative (the type of penicillin he prescribed me treats strep --which he already said I didn't have-- pneumonia, tooth abcesses, and Gonoreah. (Yeah, Hubby, we're not infected!)

He did say my white blood cell count was high and that IF I showed any signs of becoming worse, I should go to the emergency room immediately.

Okee Dokey.

That was Monday. By weds. I was exhausted, but felt like I was improving. By Friday I could talk again and wasn't taking Motrin so that I could eat. Saturday I solo-hosted a birthday party for my son, six guests and and his three siblings and then grocery shopped immediately after.

I went to bed knowing I was in trouble.

Sunday I was discouraged.
I hate being sick, but worse, I hated that my hopes of the medicine kicking whatever it was that ailed me were washing down the drain with my gargled salt water.

The whole time I've had this prescription, I have been amazed that there was no "end" date. How many days was I supposed to take these? The last prescription picked up on base (2 years ago) was a lethal antibiotic and even though the doctor had specifically told me NOT to take it for more than three days, he had written the prescription for 10. oops.

I can't tell you how many times I read the paper work with this stuff. And the bottle.

I can't eat 2 hours before or 1 hour after taking it, but have to take it three times a day. That's nine hours of an empty tummy! I dwelled on that part. I arranged my pill times not to affect the kids eating schedules. I KNEW this bottle better than I know the poems I was required to memorize in college.

Last night after my friends finally convinced me to go back to the doctor today for a stronger medicine, I looked at the bottle again thinking maybe the end date would miraculously be there...

this is what I saw, eight days after beginning these meds.:





Oh. I'm supposed to be taking TWO tablets three times a day and not ONE tablet?
Oh. oops.

Another reason why it's a bad idea to send my Hubby to Iraq...just in case any AF people are reading this.

My Favourite Things Swap

Do you remember me telling you that I signed up for another Mamarazzi's Favorite Things swap? Well I received my box yesterday from my Swap Partner, Granny Annie (Annie Kelleher*) of Writers & Witches & Words...Oh My! *I'm assuming it's ok to say her name here since it is on her blog and she is famous ;-)

It was great timing too, since I have been ill and getting really sick of being sick.

What I really love about the swap is gathering the things I like so much. I find myself having to calm down a bit since I apparently have so many favourite things-- most of which can be eaten and begin with "Ch" and end with "ocolate." But one thing I love almost as much as Cadbury is reading and Annie is an author. She included two of her books in my box.



Candles to chase out bad viruses from my house (no? ok, I like them anyway).


It's so fun getting a glimpse into someone else's likes and having a chance to meet new people. Thank you Annie, for a fun box and to Hollee Ann for coordinating these little get togethers!

Someone To Watch Over Me

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek


When we first found this house,
we were giddy with what the google map showed us about it.

It's away from the other houses.

It has it's own, long, hidden drive and a massive garden full of trees for fairies and football crazy kids.

But there was water. A lot of it. Water features everywhere.

"I don't care how great that kitchen is, if the pool is not fenced off, we won't live in it." I boldly stated.

Then I met the aga.

We looked over the unfenced pool
and we hit the internet hard for what would work to keep our kids safe in this house that had our names etched into the bricks.

There's a special clause in our lease that allows us to drill holes in the tiles surrounding that pool for installing a safety net (that will have to be shipped in from the U.S. and installed by someone from across the UK). But it couldn't be properly taken care of before the Hubby left.

So, we've drilled the children on the importance of locking the doors and knowing where Miss Ky (and A2) are at all times. I hate to scare my children, but truth is I'm scared. The few times she's left my sight and didn't respond to my voice, I felt my heart slip down behind my knees.

A few days ago, A1 who is older and has had three years of swimming, became invisible and when I searched for him in his room, throughout the house, in the back garden, in the front garden... the panic rose in my throat. I found him playing behind a bush by the pool.
Today I removed the cover. The one I've feared would hold down my children who do swim well.

I've been terribly ill. Near-hospitalization, blood-work-is-our-friend ill (you're welcome that I haven't been on here whining about it). Yesterday was the first day I stopped worrying about who would watch my children if the doctor insisted that I occupy a hospital bed. The sun was shining.

I wandered around the garden and out into the field snapping pictures and frightened a pheasant (who in turn scared the carp [fish] out of me with his insane screeching).

As I entered the opening in the hedge where the children were playing,
I caught A2 in all of his big brotherly glory,
holding Miss Ky's hand and telling her the dangers that lurk in the drainage ditch.

I think she listened to him.

.

Wordless Wednesday-- Some Photos Need No Explanation

Guess who.

The Year 2000

We all waited for the Millennium Bug.

Some prepared for Armageddon.

Some prepared for WW III.

Most held their breath in anticipation as the clock hands hit midnight that exciting
1999 New Year's Eve.

But really nothing happened that made the world news.

Nothing overly exciting happened in most people's lives.

But nine years ago today,

in the year 2000,

a falling star came to the Earth.

On it, was a little angel-spirit hitching a ride.

And our lives have never been the same.

Happy Birthday, our sweet, kind-hearted boy.
We love you.