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!
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Raspberries the world
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Best Album of the Year: Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
I don’t say this lightly, because there have been some fantastic albums this year already, but David Byrne and Brian Eno’s brand new joint effort Everything That Happens Will Happen Today is unbelievably good. It’s rich, gorgeous and the songs are beautiful. I can’t stop listening to it.\
Don’t believe me? Listen for yourself (especially Everything That Happens, Life Is Long and One Fine Day):\
It really is amazing. The ethereal music behind David Byrne’s fantastic vocals are transportive in the best sense of the word. I don’t even know how else to express it… it’s just beautiful.\
Oh, and who did they beat out? Here are the rest of my favorite albums that have come out this year:- The Constantines – Kensington Heights
- Sigur Ros – Med sud I eyrum vid spilum endalaust
- Sloan – Parallel Play
- REM – Accelerate
- Plants and Animals – Parc Avenue\
That’s some good company to beat out, especially The Constantines best album ever…
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Ga to Va, and back again
The kids used to have Babba Day, where they would get to spend the day with Babba (Kevin’s mom). This time they got Babba Bonanza, where they got to spend more than a week with her. She flew down on Friday, spent the weekend with us, she then drove the boys and me back to Va, we spent the week there, she drove us back to Ga, and then she flew home. How awesome! Here’s how our time was spent.\
Friday: Picked Babba up at the airport. Her plane was delayed so we truncated our plans. We were still able to take a quickie tour of downtown, the cute squares and historic buildings; stop at Leopold’s for ice cream; and took the boys to the beach. Babba and the boys had a blast playing in the water. Every time I tried to take a pic though, Babba would throw sand at me! So, no pics of her from that event. Sad. We came home to the hot lasagna I made earlier. YAY for great timing.\
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Saturday: Dolphin tour and dinner at a seafood place that had a great view of the water. I had crab, two types of shrimp, and scallops. YUM! (Erm, Kevin had an allergic reaction to the fresh scallops. Not so fun.)\
Sunday: Church and fabulous homemade enchiladas and tortilla soup. Wooo. Babba sat next to an outgoing woman that I’ve decided should become my new BFF.\
Monday: Drove up to Va. Long day. Babba drove since I have a notorious light foot and we wanted the drive to only take one day. She asked me to stay awake for the entire drive and entertain her while she was driving, which was the least I could do. But, staying awake the whole trip??? Waaah.\
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Tuesday: Babba treated us to lunch at a Japanese Steakhouse, the boys’ favorite type of restaurant. Then I did a bit of shopping- both at stores, the internet, and Babba’s closet- yay! I scored the most beautiful pink flats from Babba. And some white flats, and (faux) snake skin flats, and black flats, and beige flats, and another pair of pink shoes, and…\
Wednesday: Took the boys to the LDS Temple’s Visitor Center, a greasy diner for lunch, this amazing park (we had an awesome train ride there too!), and a butterfly house.\
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At some point in the week I exclaimed, “Don’t make me go back!” Babba had been treating us really well- turkey dinners, fresh peach muffins, trips to new playgrounds. And I’d been sleeping on some magical, pillow-topped bed that allowed me to wake without pains in my legs and back.\
Thursday: I don’t remember much of Thursday. Oops. I know Grandpa played frisbee golf with the boys in the yard after dinner. It’s now Brian’s favorite game. ETA- I think the boys decorated t-shirts with Aunt Heather. Oh, we also went to the library to score some cheap books for sale (I found The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide for \$1!!) and then let the boys play at an indoor playground. (No sunscreen means no outside play.)\
Friday: The boys played with our old neighbors, Daisy and Mico, and then checked out a new playground with Babba, while I did laundry and took a nap. It was like everyone’s-favorite-activity day!!\
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Saturday: Drove back home. Babba made excellent time, woot. Kevin made an excellent dinner. Woot, woot.\
Sunday: Babba flew home. Brian cried. -
Dolphin Tour!
My mom came down this weekend and we went on a dolphin tour (Captain Mike’s Dolphin Tour to be exact)! I don’t have time to tell the whole story now, but it was great. It was the perfect length – the boys were just starting to get antsy at the end of it and we saw lots of dolphins. The rest of the photos are here. I haven’t gone through all of them (we took a ton – I took 235 with the big camera, Max took almost fifty and Brian took a dozen or so), so I’ll probably add some more to the set this week.
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Justify!
Some things should remain private. Like what goes on between a person and her tivo. Know what I am saying?
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It’s the Little Things
We finally got DirecTV hooked up at the house, which means the Tivo is back and ready to record. Unfortunately, now I have to go through all the network shows, delete them and add them back (if it can find them). So, this morning as I groggily recover from an allergic reaction to last night’s scallops (the doctor didn’t say to avoid them and I’ve had them before without them doing anything, but for some reason, last night’s got me good), I’m going through the Season Pass Manager and fixing things while everyone else is at church.\
First, I wrote down all the shows, and I thought this would be an interesting list to post. A lot of these shows are Jen’s, but here are our network shows in “priority” order according to Tivo:- Heroes (shared)
- Supernatural (Jen’s)
- Numb3rs (Jen’s)
- The Office (shared)
- Without a Trace (Jen’s)
- Lost (mine)
- How I Met Your Mother (Jen’s)
- Big Bang Theory (shared)
- Bones (Jen’s)
- My Name Is Earl (mine)
- Chuck (shared)
- 30 Rock (shared)
- Pushing Daisies (shared)
- Dirty Sexy Money (Jen’s)
- Friday Night Lights (shared)
- Criminal Minds (Jen’s)
- Life (shared)
- Reaper (shared)
- American Dad (mine)
- The View (so Jen’s)
- Family Guy (mine)
- Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (shared)
- Welcome to the Captain (Jen’s)
- Swingtown (Jen’s)
- Secret Life of the American Teenager (so so so Jen’s)
- Flashpoint (Jen’s)\
The other 34 shows on the Tivo are all non-network shows spread out over the TV-viewing spectrum. I’ve been so busy, and we’re been in the middle of the summer TV doldrums, I almost haven’t missed having TV at all, other than Pardon the Interruption, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
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Bad mommy # ohwhocares
I am the worst purchaser of Max’s school clothes. For the third year now, I bought the wrong size clothes- twice. Boo.
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Lucky, lucky me!
I have the best, most well-behaved kids ever. EVER!! Want proof? Four hours at the health department and nary a peep (and we went unprepared without toys! or books! or crayons!), except when Brian received five shots (Max only needed one).
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To do
After weeks of nothing to do, suddenly I have everything to do this week!
- Go to the Health Dept to have the kids’ immunizations included in the Ga system and have Max get the ear/throat/nose report for school.
- Get new driver’s license (our month is up), get new plates and tags (sadly, this is at separate places).
- Register Max for school (the staff is back).
- Clean up the backyard from the mess the kiddie pool made (ugh, kiddie pools are such a bad idea).
- Have Brian tested at the Speech and Hearing clinic (free tests on ‘first come, first serve’ basis once a week. Though it might be less crowded after school starts. Hmmm).
- Get Brian on a few pre-k waiting lists. (This is my one regret about moving here, which couldn’t be helped. I only hope that this delay in school doesn’t have a long-lasting impact.)
- Buy school supplies (I haven’t been able to get the list from the internet to load, grr. The school should have a hard copy though).
- Exchange Max’s school pants for a bigger size.
- Do laundry and pack for Va trip.
- Ready the house for our first guest, wheee!
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Pretty!
Kevin took this picture last week and I love it. It would be perfect for our office, if we had one. Note to self: make sure next house has a great spot for this.\
