My parents live in southern Miss. I was telling a friend that I am not worried about them though. I went on to say that around their town, you can see roofs with blue tarps from where they still haven’t been fixed since Katrina. And then I was like, “And why am I not scared again?” Kevin was like, “Yea, why aren’t you scared? They are pretty much right in Gustav’s path.” Gee, thanks a lot, Kev.\
Hanna is heading straight for us. Is this what the whole Fall is going to be like?\
Our landlord is going through bankruptcy and is desperately trying to short sell the house we are currently renting so the bank won’t foreclose. This means that we will probably be moving again. Booo. Remind me next time we rent to check the credit of the homeowner, ok? The worst part (as of right now, when I am not packing/unpacking again) is the uncertainty and the unclear time line. How long does a foreclosure take, if it comes to that? How does his bankruptcy affect ownership of the house? If he’s asking less than the market price, what is the liklihood of it selling quickly, to someone who actually wants to live here? (If it sold to someone who wanted to rent it out, we’d stay.)\
So, Palin, huh? Yea, no thanks.\
In happier news, Max was placed in the advanced class of his grade. We didn’t have to wait for testing because I had the standardized test results from last Spring. YAY! He is really excited about school. There are all sorts of clubs he can join too. Savannah has 5 magnet elementary schools, so I was worried that the neighborhood elementary schools would suffer. So far, so good though. I’ll be keeping my fingers and toes crossed that the school actually will be as awesome as it seems. When I told a friend of mine that this school seems better than the one we left in No Va, she was shocked. Cuz yea, No Va schools have a great rep and Ga schools not so much. But we’ll see!
Category: Max
Tybee Island Photo Safari
I took the boys to Tybee Island today, nominally, to go a photo safari. I had my lovely Nikon D80. Max was sporting the Powershot and Brian had the backup Samsung. Of course, I knew we wouldn’t be taking pictures for long after they saw the water. I got a bunch of shots in, though, since I wasn’t going to near the water.\
Here are a couple of my other favorites from the set:
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Life in Ga
Kevin is working way too much. He’s up everyday before the alarm and is even out of the house before I wake up.\
I am not sure if it is because we are new here, because we are renting, or maybe just due to it being summer, but I feel like I am on vacation with no to do list. Wheeee. The boys and I just goof around all day until it’s time for me to make dinner. And I actually have been cooking, even breakfast! (The boys got used to having a hot breakfast after a week at Babb’s house and a week in a hotel. Boo. No more cold, continental ones for them. Ha.) Last night I made enchiladas and tortilla soup for the first time and they turned out fabulously!! Sadly, Kevin worked really late and missed the first presentation.\
The house is nice, but the kitchen is a bit small. Everything is a mess, but a functioning one. I am not even bothering to unpack everything. There are still boxes everywhere and I don’t really plan to change that, since we don’t have any visitors coming soon :(. The boys are sharing a room, one room is a play room that no one uses- but it’s pretty, one room is full of food storage, and that leaves the master for us and K’s not-yet-set-up office.\
The boys seem to be happy but miss Kevin. Max has been alternating between playing on the computer and reading Harry Potter. Brian flits from toy to toy. He likes to run and scoot around the circle of the house (living room to dining room to kitchen to family room to entry way to living room, etc). We also play in the sprinklers a lot and then he hops in the shower to get his feet clean. We don’t have tv yet, so in the wee morning when I am not ready to be awake and in the afternoon before Brian crashes for a nap, we watch the same 4 videos. The other day I splurged and bought Flushed Away, so make that 5 videos.\
That’s pretty much our life so far!
Max’s schoolwork 2
Favorite Food Mom Makes\
What is it: Macaroni and Cheese.\
How it is made: take a plastic thing mac n’ cheese and put it in the microwave for 30 seconds.\
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She is so nice and she is honest to me. She let’s me have reading time before bed. She is like 2170 pounds of nice with reduced gravity.
Max’s schoolwork
I just pulled this out from Max’s bag. This is the paper in its entirety, emphasis mine though:\
I was in kindergarden [sic]. Later, I went to Hawaii. Technecly [sic], I was going to the Hawaiian Islands. I stayed for two weeks. They were the best 2 weeks of my life. We lived in a house where we got dirty feet if we went barefoot. Before we got to rent the house, we went to a place. My brother and I went to a playground. On one of my last few days there I went to McDonald’s (which I only regret only because of the recipe) and later, I left. It was great. I wish it could happen again.
When it rains, it pours
Max went to the AOL daycare center this morning for Spring Break camp.\
I just received a call that he twisted his ankle.\
Oy.
International Day of Awesomeness is almost here!
International Day of Awesomeness is this Monday. This is an opportunity to celebrate the awesomeness already within you.\
bq. No one’s perfect, but everyone can be awesome… People are awesome every day, frequently don’t realize it, and their feats of awesomeness are rarely recognized. We aim to fix that, with a special day to both perform and celebrate feats of awesomeness! bq.\
For the lazybones in the crowd, Monday, March 10, was picked because it is Chuck Norris’s birthday. Go here to read why Chuck Norris is so awesome.\
It’s been fun to read the different mentions of this around the internet. I am nothing if not a supportive wife, so I knew I had to do something too. Plus, Max is super excited. It is a school day and Kevin will be out of town, though, so I was having trouble thinking up something. Then inspiration struck! I made t-shirts. (Erm, I came up with the idea, did the shopping, and googling, and then went to my in-laws who actually made the shirts. Heh. Thanks, Baba and Uncle Steve.) Because really? Special t-shirts and/or cupcakes are all you need for a celebration. It’s true, ask around!\
Here they are:\
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Aren’t they great? Some might even say “awesome.” I know Max will. He doesn’t know about them yet though. Wheee. I love fun and silly surprises. Then we are getting together with Baba after school to have a treat or activity of some sort.\
For my awesome feat, I decided to… donate blood! Woot. I am very proud of this idea. 🙂 I haven’t donated blood since moving here and it’s about time I did. My mom always set an excellent example of the importance and ease of donating blood. I have an appointment in Fairfax for Monday afternoon. Go me!!\
So, those are my plans for the International Day of Awesomeness. What are yours?
Oh no!
Max’s ‘intro to martial arts’ class was canceled because he was the only one signed up. Drat.
Snow!
The kids and I spent almost two hours outside playing in the snow after Max came home from school. Building a snowman is surprisingly difficult. Then we came inside for hot chocolate and feety pajamas. YAY!*\
*This is totally the sanitized version. The real version is that Max clomped around the house yelling for me after getting home. He woke both Brian and me up from a lovely nap. I scurried to get Max into his snow clothes. Brian flopped around crying because he was upset at being disturbed. Then he cried about wanting to go outside to play with Max. While I gathered Brian’s snow clothes and dressed him, he continued to cry. Lovely. I couldn’t get Brian’s snow gloves on properly, so we settled for a knit pair. Then I dressed myself. Off we went! I couldn’t find the camera, so no pictures. There were lots of other kids outside already. Max and the older kids snowboarded a little. Brian apparently sweet talked an older girl into sledding with him. They went up and down over a million times and Brian didn’t have to do any of the hard work! It was really cute to see. I plopped down and was instructed by Daisy, the cute neighbor girl, to build the head of a snowman. But! But I kept crushing the head. After awhile, Daisy’s mom came out and we chatted. OMG adult time! Best part of my day. Brian soldiered on with only his knit gloves for quite awhile, but eventually his little frozen fingers became too painful. I shoved the snow gloves on and we both pretended they fit ok. The kids played for awhile more. When I finally told them to go inside, they pouted. I sent them in first so that I could shovel our sidewalk. When I got inside, the kids were complaining about being stuck in their snow clothes. Brian started to scream and wanted all of his clothes off. Neither kid wanted their new pajamas on. When I dared to pause taking care of them to get my own snow clothes off, they demanded hot chocolate. After taking a drink, Brian immediately dissed it and wanted “real chocolate milk” instead. While stirring and whipping the hot chocolate, both kids started begging for dinner. Forty-five minutes later everybody is finally quiet and content.
Quickie Update
Brian started preschool today! Wheeeee. Three hours a day for three days a week. YAY! He’s started prereading lately (like recognizing the Target symbol on a truck and the Nickelodeon symbol on Tivo’s Now Playing list), which is awesome! Yay for Brian. Thankfully Max is older enough and I have a bad enough memory that I don’t actually compare Brian to where Max was at this age.\
Max is taking an intro to martial arts class at the community center. I’m excited for him. If he enjoys it, I’ll sign him up for classes at the local center. There is one practically every other block around here. What’s up with that?\
Kevin cooked a mini-holiday feast for us on Saturday. We had turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, rolls, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie. We’ve been living off of the leftovers ever since and it’s been heavenly. Kevin did a great job and cooked the turkey in the oven instead of the crockpot like he usually does.\
We’re getting wood floors for the main level next week! YAY! I am super excited. But all of this house fix-up, that we are paying other people to do, is making a lot of work for me. Boooo to that.\
I found this green sofa that I love but I don’t know how the fabric will hold up. It was on sale last week for \$600, with a \$70 warranty against stains. For that price, it doesn’t have to last until the boys get to high school, you know? We’re thinking of pairing the sofa with two brown leather, small-scale arm chairs and an enlarged print of of this picture Kevin took in France. I just love the colors in it.\
The shower in the basement hasn’t been completed because a part was misplaced. A new one was ordered and should be in this week. Other than that and some very minor paint touch-ups, the guys are done. I’ve enjoyed the lack of construction for the last few days. However, it’s been kind of stressful that we can’t move forward with carpeting or putting things away yet. But! We’ve all been reveling in being able to go to the bathroom down there (don’t tell the inspector). It’s awesome! I want to have a peepee party now, just to show it off. We now have 4 toilets, which means that we can all get food poisoning at the same time! Speaking of which, I think we should order Chinese food for dinner tonight. Y/N?\
ETA- Just got home from picking Brian up at preschool. His teacher went on and on about how smart and observant he is. Super YAY! I’m happy for Brian.\
Also, the contractor just called to say that the part is in. The guys will be coming out today to finish. Yay!