Rip off

As the title of this post indicates, I'm completely stealing this idea. I have a knack for that sort of thing. I have little/no creativity of my own, so I like to just take other people's ideas and pretend creativity is oozing out of my pores. Hey, at least I'm giving credit where credit is due. Not even a footnote, or an end note, but a before-anything-else note. I stole this idea from my good friend Marla Taviano. I realize I'm already completely butchering this post because guess what it's supposed to be called? "Word sabbath."

Yes, Marla, I'm taking your idea and running with it. Except maybe I'm just walking, or perhaps crawling because your "word sabbath" posts never have words in them, thus the "word sabbath" title. But I did have to explain myself. You did that in your first word sabbath post, didn't you? Anyway, from time to time I'm just going to post pictures. (Insert laughter here. Like I'm ever going to post anything without a ridiculously long explanation. I'll try to keep the words to a minimum, how about.) FYI "minimum" just may be the world's most difficult word to type. I'd be ashamed to admit how many times I had to use the backspace key to get that one right. Whew, on to the "word sabbath." Enjoy. And give all credit to Marla. Except for the actual picture taking, that was all me.

Alright already, here you go. Word sabbath:

Round two

So...I have strep throat AGAIN. Note that it has not even been one month since I last had this vicious bacteria. This time I'm on Penicillin instead of Amoxicillin, which had better destroy all of this nastiness for longer than 3 weeks, or...I don't know, I'd do something drastic. Like preform a tonsillectomy on myself. That would teach those drug companies to make more effective antibiotics.

Life before the diagnosis had been good. Do you like that I sound as if I've been given 2 weeks to live? Anyway, Ty and I had a fun mommy/son night a few days ago. Dan took Jake to a high school basketball game, and I told Ty we'd do something special. I didn't have a clue what that would be until I asked him 5 minutes before Jake and Dan left. His "special night" request was this: "PLEASE can we paint the house?" He has been asking me for days about the cans of paint in the garage. I told him they were the colors of the walls in our house, in case we ever needed to paint again. He's been asking to paint the house every day since then, and after looking at all the scuff/scratch/toy-mangled missing paint marks on our walls, I agreed. Just FYI almost all of these marks are conspicuously at or below Ty-height; shocker, I know.

For those of you who think I'm crazy for letting my 2 1/2 year old paint our wall (not using washable watercolors) without a drop cloth in sight...that's pretty legit. But I only had about half an inch of off-white paint in a plastic cup and told him I needed to make sure the brush wasn't dripping before he went at the walls, so it didn't turn out too badly. He of course didn't actually paint the spots that needed touching up, so I did that when he wasn't looking. He was thrilled to be doing a "big guy" job.

Other highlights of the Ty/Mom evening were making sugar-free chocolate pudding, watching his favorite TV show Imagination Movers, and maybe the most exciting thing of all: I let him run around wearing nothing but underwear all night long. After looking at this picture, I should rephrase that...underwear and pudding and paint.

Hopefully I'll have some more good stories once these antibiotics have kicked in. Until then, think of me drinking hot tea and composing a scathing letter to the makers of Amoxicillin.

Life as we know it

After the daily struggle of putting Ty down for a nap these days (approximately 30 minutes of crying, whining, pleading, defying) I'm finally ready to blog. About what...I'm not quite sure.

A quick (ha! Me?) update on our lives might include some of the following:

Ty's been milking a whiny nasally voice lately. For instance, "I want breakfast right neeeeow." And asking for his favorite lunch item, "give me heeeam but no cheese and no seeeam-weeich." (Yes, that's just ham. Hand fulls of ham. Buckets of ham.) "I need a sneeeeack." Despite the fact that Ty is single handedly keeping our local pig farm in business, at least the child is willing to eat about anything we put in front of him. As long as it can be dipped in Ranch. (Yes, folks it was not simply a short phase; Ranch is the new ketchup. FYI...our grocery budget has doubled.)

Jake on the other hand is still fighting the fact that he actually can tolerate normal food (normal excludes pb&j, Easy Mac, and Dino chicken). We're making him eat crazy things like lasagna (gasp) and roast beef with mashed potatoes. I know, we're horrible. Worst parents ever. Here's what happens: he'll take a microscopic bite after about 10 minutes of drama, close his eyes, make a few gagging noises, chew, open his eyes, look around, and after swallowing, state matter-of-factly, "I DO like it," and proceed to eat the entire plate.

Dan's been loving not coaching a sport this season. It's been nice to have him home at 3:30 instead of 8 or 9 on game days. He and his BFF Brian (can guys have BFF's? Seems a little fem, don't you think? Dan and Brian are definitely NOT fem, so I'll just scratch that) Dan and his sports-watching-meat-eating-strong-man-competition-watching friend Brian smoked some pork all day for us to eat at our Super Bowl party. Pulled pork sandwiches, homemade bbq sauce, baked beans...holy delicious. I married a rock star in the kitchen.

Me? I'm just hanging out. Eating bon bons and such. Actually, after Gluttony Sunday, I mean Super Bowl Sunday we've decided to get serious about getting skinny. HA! I just thought of either of us EVER being described as skinny. But we're trying to get healthy and lose a few extra pounds. I'm happy to announce that I've worked out the last 3 days in a row and have been eating healthy and drinking 8 times my body weight in H2O. Isn't that what the daily recommended water intake is? I forget.

I've actually had a lot of time off of work lately. I only work on-call, and evidently the hospital is losing money during this economic crisis, so they're not filling shifts like they used to. Come on, people, help me out here. I need more diseases and injuries, pronto. Kidding of course. I love being home. But I'd also love to be able to pay for a few vacations this summer, so if you're thinking about doing something dangerous and stupid, and you live in the Portland area...go for it. I've got your back.

Alright, I'll wrap it up with a few recent quotes from the boys. Ty was putting on a winter hat the other day and I told him he didn't need that because it wasn't that cold outside. I thought he said, "Yes I do because we're going to Greg and Judie's." I replied, "Honey, we're not going to Greg and Judie's," and his response was a wild-eyed, clenched-teeth, "Listen...to what... I'm saying... It's SNOWING...at Greg and Judie's." Oh, excuse me. I'll listen better next time.

Today we were driving down our street and there were two dogs...um...getting quite friendly in someones front yard. Jake goes, "Hey Beebs, look at those doggies!" I'm trying to get them to look somewhere, ANYwhere, else and then Ty says, "Yeah! Those doggies like wrestling with each other, like WE do, Jake!" "YEAH! Isn't that funny, Mom?" Funny wasn't the first word to cross my mind. I'm just glad we were in the car and not at a park full of 50 horrified mothers.

One word

I saw this on a friend's facebook page (thanks Julie!) and thought it was interesting. Then I realized I probably couldn't do it. Know why? I have to respond to each question with only ONE WORD. I've been called a lot of things in my life, but "One-Word" Stump is definitely not one of them. Especially when I write. Like this paragraph for instance, I could have just said, "read this, it's interesting" but why would I do that when I love trying to type 75 WPM (with 95 errors, but who's counting?) This is probably one of the hardest things I've done in a long time. And you're about to witness it. Wish me luck. Here I go:

Where is your cell phone? purse
Your hair? new
Your father? dependable
Your favorite thing? family
Your dream last night? chaos
Your favorite drink? coffee
Your dream goal? grandma
The room you are in? office
Your fear? trials
Where do you want to be in 6 years? here
Muffins? poppyseed
One of wish list items? vacation
Where did you grow up? here
The last thing you did? type
What you are wearing? jeans
Your t.v.? large
Your pets? Puggle
Your computer? used
Your life? blessed
Your mood? thoughtful
Missing someone? Lillie's
Your car? necessity
Favorite store? Ross
Your favorite color? green
When is the last time you laughed? just
Last time you cried? weeks
Favorite Show? LOST
In love? Absolutely
Favorite Restaurant? Red Robin
Do you or don't you? Snore? Nope

Are you impressed? It only took me an hour. Longer than it takes me to type my typical 9000 words. Why can I not help being so verbose? (One of my favorite honors English vocab words.) So long-winded? So garrulous and loquacious? Dangit, my spell check just told me that poppyseed is actually two words. I can't win.