Elvis Is In The House!

I know it's almost Christmas, but with so much going on, I completely missed Halloween. I had to post this photo of Bethany, my 9 yr old - she made a great Elvis! She had some moves and after each house gave her candy, she said, "Thank you, thank you very much".....of course.

My parents camp for the whole summer and the campground where they stay has a Halloween weekend we usually attend. They dress up and hand out candy, scaring all the little children....

Lovely couple, aren't they?

Supposubly, It's Just Allergies.....

OK, for the record, I'm not perfect....I know, I know, it's a shocker, but I'm afraid it's true. So the venting I'm about to unleash is not done without the knowledge that I'm sure at times I can be annoying and ridiculous. Probably not, but I don't want to sound arrogant.

Anyway, in case people don't know, I do not live in the ghetto, I do not run with a gang or hang with hoodlums. I have a professional job and interact with professional people on a daily basis. It never ceases to amaze me that people like this can use words such as "supposubly" (instead of supposedly)...I know this seems like a minor detail, but if you are an adult over the age of say...4, you have no excuse in pronouncing your words correctly. Whenever I am talking with someone and they use that word, I start talking to myself about how I can't believe they just said that word and I end up not hearing another thing the person says.

Moving on. You may also not know I am an ex-smoker. Ex-smoker's are the WORST non-smokers out there. We can't stand the smell of smoke even more than people who never smoked...not sure why, but it's true. Now because I was a smoker for 20+ years, I know what a smoker's cough is. I also have allergies and I know what a cough from allergies is like. They are not the same...not even close. So when I hear someone coughing up a lung on a daily basis, in between their smoking breaks, suddenly claim their cough must be due to an oncoming cold or allergies...I want to walk up to them, laugh in their face and say, "Are You Kidding????!!! Your cough is generated from your lungs trying to rid themselves of all the goop that is oozing from them because of your smoking!!!"....I mean seriously!

I think that's all for now....

I Went, I Saw, I Was Dragged In Deeper....

I will keep this short as I know I have some readers who are not big Twilight fans..I know it's hard to believe...but it's true. My friend and I decided to forego the opening night showings this time around in the hopes of escaping the screaming throngs of teenage girls every time the main character appeared on the screen. It opened Friday and we waited until today, Sunday, to go see the movie and I'm happy to say not only was there no screaming, but there were no lines and the theater wasn't even packed. Granted they were showing the movie about every 1/2 hour...anyway, at one point in the movie, I recognized the scene from a clip I had seen online and knowing the character "Jacob" was about to rip his shirt off and reveal quite a treat for us women, I said "here it comes" to my friend. As we were taking in this wonderful visual, my friend said to me, "I feel like a pedofile!". Yes that made me put the whole age thing into perspective...here we are, 40 year old women, gawking at teenage bodies...wow...when I actual put it in print we really sound like cougars! However, it's just a movie, nothing we would do in real life....we have some morals! So no matter what you think of us, we will continue to gawk and wait ever so patiently for the release of the next Twilight movie, "Eclipse" on June 30th....or maybe we'll wait until July 2nd....

I Have Failed Miserably.....

OK, maybe Joan Crawford is going a little overboard, but I recently had a few situations with my daughters that caused me to realize my shortcomings with parenting.

Now I have talked to a few friends with kids in that 12-13yr old range so I know I'm not alone...but I keep looking for the switch....you know, the one that someone is secretly switching on and off causing my 12 yr old to suddenly turn into an irrational, screaming girl who cannot understand why her Mother does terrible, horrible things to her. Even when I wasn't there. For example, she has an Aeropostale sweatshirt that she wears all the time. It is her jacket, her blanket, her napkin, her candy hiding place, etc. You get the picture. We forced her to take it off the other night so we could wash it and I put it in the dryer, which I don't normally do for fear it would alter some way...but I was working under time constraints. Soooo....the following morning when she was rushing around like normal to get ready in time for her school bus, she put on her sweatshirt. Now, the zipper pull had migrated to the top of the zipper during the wash...and I might remind you she is an honors student, but that apparently stops at the book smarts. She grabbed both sides of the bottom of the sweatshirt and started screaming at me that I should never have put it in the dryer because now it was broken and she couldn't zipper it! I mean this was quite a tirade...as she continued screaming, she took off said sweatshirt and threw it. I almost felt bad, only because she was going to feel really stupid in two seconds. I slowly picked up the sweatshirt and right in front of her, pulled the zipper pull all the way down to the bottom...then handed it back to her. She immediately laughed and said she was sorry....oh, sorry, I was in my happy place again! She put the sweatshirt on and said I had shrunk it (it fit perfectly).

Now the next incident needs me to remind everyone that my 9 year old is nicknamed Dramatica for a reason. I also need to remind you that several times I have denied my children medical attention because I thought they were faking, only to find out they actually did have a fractured wrist and strep throat. OK, with that being said, one day this past week, instead of my alarm waking me at 5:15am as usual, I awoke at 6:30a - very bad. We have a strict morning schedule and we were all running around with our heads cut off. One of our dogs was acting weird so I asked the girls to let the dogs outside, and I turned to go get dressed. I had only managed to get my pants and bra on when I heard screams. I didn't panic, but then Jamie was screaming, "She's not breathing!" and Jamie was screaming and whining...when I asked who it was that wasn't breathing and she screamed, "Bethany!", I thought I was going to throw up. I couldn't imagine what had happened to cause such an accident! I raced to the other side of the house half dressed. Jamie is frozen in the kitchen, pointing to Bethany who is sprawled out on her back on the deck outside. Bethany is drawing in deep breaths and crying. It was at this moment that the lightbulb went on. We have seriously failed our children somewhere along the way. They are clearly grossly unprepared for life. I looked at Jamie, pointed to her sister and said, "That is breathing - clearly she is breathing!". So I wondered if Bethany had actually not been breathing, would Jamie just have stood there, doing nothing? Moving on....the slider door was still open and I looked at Bethany, still dressed in shorts, tank top, no socks or shoes...still laying on the deck in 30 degree freezing cold weather. I asked her what happened and she said she slipped. I kind of rolled my eyes (maybe a clue to the poor parenting?) and marched out to help her up...this is when I realized the entire deck was covered in a microscopic film of ice and I almost went down myself. I wished I could take the eye rolling back. I asked her what made her think it was OK to go out side dressed as she was when it was so cold? She had no answer for me. Had we done a better job, she would know this was a bad idea. So I ended up taking Bethany to the emergency room and she is fine, just sore. But does she know how to milk it!
As I was just sitting her writing this, she was making up songs while playing the piano (she does not know how to play), one song was about how the devil is coming to town to steal your soul. Something is just not right there.

Meep!....Cry of the Rebel

My all time favorite muppet has always been Beaker, the bumbling lab assistant:



I always thought it was because he innocently tried to help and always ended up burning something or breaking somethng by accident...but now I really know why I could relate to Beaker...he is a wild child, a rebel without a cause and when he really wants to let you know who's boss, he cries......."meep"

Uh, excuse me? "meep?"

Yeah, meep. No one seems to know what it means, but the principal of a school in my state has banned kids from using this word. When I saw it on the news, I asked my 12 year old daughter what the word meant, figuring it must stand for something bad...a kind of rebellious code word. Nope. Just meep. You heard me, it has no hidden devil message, doesn't stand for some new drug...just a word apparently chosen by a group of kids to say repeatedly just to disrupt their classes. They planned this "meep" disruption through Facebook and the principal got wind of it and supposedly asked them to curb the meeping. I'm sure this only caused them to want to meep even more - so a letter was sent home to all children in the school advising kids will be suspended for using the word "meep". Is this the most ridiculous thing you have ever heard? I mean punish the kids for disrupting the classes, but to ban a nonsensical word used by a muppet? Are you kidding? If I were in that school I would stage a protest and invite Beaker to give a speech...what's a little suspension, right?

There Is Nothing Wrong With Being Weird...

As a matter of fact, my oldest daughter enjoys when people think she is weird. I don't mean weird in the sense that she uses household objects as clothing or talks to friends only she can "see"...I mean she has a weird sense of humor and I believe it is one of the greatest gifts I have given her. I have come to this conclusion because there is this cartoon that some genius has created on You Tube that I find very funny....it's been out there a while and there are now at least 3 cartoons that I know of. They are called "Charlie The Unicorn"...please, go to YouTube and watch all three. I actually haven't watched the first two in a while, but the third one has this song that is sung under the water and is hysterical...especially the starfish....ok, just click this link or paste into your browser and watch the third "episode":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaCCkfjPm0o
My daughter and I both think this is funny. Very funny.
Now, should you have just watched this and be thinking to yourself that your image of me has come down quite a few notches, well, I make no apologies. I'm weird and I'm OK with that. If you watched this video and you didn't laugh out loud at the starfish...my image of you has come down a few notches. Seriously...Starfish really loves you!

My Mom...The Beer Pong Champion!

I'm going to give you a little background before this one...when I was growing up, it became apparent that my Dad was much more "in the know" about under age drinking than my Mom. This made sense since my Dad had to quit school after one year of high school to go to work and help with the family finances - he grew up quite young. My Mom was on the other end of the spectrum as her Dad owned a gas station and she was raised not to do any un-ladylike things. She told me the worst thing she ever did was squirt her friend at school with a squirt gun, except her friend ducked and instead she squirted a nun in the face...she attended a nice Catholic school. She was a nice Catholic girl. She didn't know about such things as sneaking booze from your parents or drinking games. Her innocence worked to my brother and my advantage when we were younger because my Mom just had no clue what to look for, what things we could be getting into. My Dad knew and for the most part he played it cool as long as no one was getting hurt..."I didn't tell your Mother about the beer in the backseat of your car...just get it out of there"...of course that would never fly in today's world of parents being sued all the time for the poor decisions of their children. My Mom is pretty funny and it doesn't take but a few sips of a pretty mixed drink to get her giggling...her famous story is from years ago when she used to like this drink called a "melon ball"...we were at a wedding and she asked the bartender (completely serious, mind you) "do you have melon balls?"...she ran into the ladies room without her drink she was so embarrassed.

So, this past Wednesday night my parents had our girls over and when I went to pick them up, Bethany and my Mom were playing a game on the Wii. I had to do a double take...it was beer pong! Except without the drinking part...but the characters were scantily clad girls and the location looked like a bar. I said, "Mom, what is this?" Bethany replied, "It's Ping, Mom"...I looked at my Mother and said, "Mom, this is a drinking game. It's beer pong." Of course this was the wrong thing to say because instantly my 12 year old wanted to know how it was a drinking game. I told her I didn't know, they didn't have this game when I was growing up. Which was true, we had anchorman...me and my brother were an excellent team by the way. So they continued playing and my Mom was really good at it. So I'm thinking we need a beer pong table for the holidays...beer pong for the Wii, what will they think of next!

This And That And Some Things In Between...

As I said before, we had a lot going on the last few months. At one point, it was just ridiculous how much we were dealing with and our breaking point came when we were waiting outside a courtroom with a few other people and someone came in and said a truck in the parking lot was on fire...we looked at each other as we started hearing sirens...there was a truck parked 2 spaces away from us...we just started laughing...then we started seeing the smoke billowing in front of the windows so Mike ran outside to see if he could move our minivan...too late, they wouldn't even let him get near our car...by the time I ran out to take this picture, the fire department had it all under control so you can just see a little smoke above the cars...and all that was left when we went to our car later on was a pile of rusted rubble where the truck had been...but for a minute there we were like, "seriously? what else could possibly happen to us?"



Once a year my boss puts on this golf extravaganza for vendors and customers. I help to organize part of this event and it makes me crazy for about of month or so, but in return I get to spend a day at the golf course...ok I did get there at 6:30am and I did work via laptop until we had to set up, get everyone (160 or so people) through registration, then set up the prizes and tables, etc....but eventually I was able to sit for a moment and relax....



I know how you all love that I take pictures while I'm driving, so here's one of a nice sunset on my drive home from work one night...I actually took a bunch because I could visually see the sun sinking into the ground (in between making sure I wasn't driving off the road or into any fellow commuters!) and I thought it was cool....it didn't translate well on the camera though, so this is the best one...



While our computer was down we had Mike's semi-annual scans at Dana Faber to make sure everything is still looking good. While we were waiting, I realized how cool that particular area at Dana Faber is. Dana Faber is connected in many ways to the Red Sox by way of charity events, etc. This area at the bottom of the stairs has a whole wall of signed Red Sox baseballs and the walls themself are painted to look like the Green Monster at Fenway Park....if you don't know what "the Green Monster" is...too bad!

Anyway, here is a picture of the wall of baseballs and one of Mike sitting in actual old bleacher seats, getting his yucky drink ready...

More From My Missing Time.....

OK, where was I...oh yes, I lost about 2 months of my time with you due to a computer crash and we were catching up. One of the big events this summer was my 40th birthday. I took no chances with this celebration and had started thinking about it months before. Yes, I would have loved to celebrate Oprah style with a 3 day extravaganza, however in reality a backyard BBQ would have to do. The date I picked revolved around when one of my best friends, who lives in Africa, would be here visiting. Once I picked the date, there is no turning back. Regardless of the weather, that date is yours. My theme was "favorites"...all my favorites, of course. Cheesecake being one of them...although I made a list of 40 of my favorites. Next was music. Throughtout my life music has played such a big role - I can relate almost any event in my life to a song or style of music. I went to a lot of concerts in my day. I spent hours upon hours jotting down specific songs then going through old CD's and other people's CD's, downloading songs, then compiling specific tracks. This was no small task. We have a karaoke machine, but you can use the microphone with it like a speaker. So the idea was, I would play all these CD's I burned throughout the day and would tell little stories to go along with some of the songs. I also had some of my favorite stories from growing up. When the day came, Mike couldn't get the CD's to play...not even kidding....the microphone worked and I remember I kept yelling at him "Fix It!" - the poor guy tried everything and I just kept yelling "fix it!" but we never did get them to play - I was mad, but the wine helped dull the pain. And even though rain was predicted all week, we had none.

Anyway, on my invitations I had requested that everyone bring something that is one of their favorites; a story, a food, a shirt, etc. The picture above is my friend who grew up on my street and she is telling everyone how she always loved these chocolate type pop tarts that my Mom always bought for me and my brother, but her Mom would never buy them...so now that she is a Mom herself, she always has them in the house.

I loved celebrating that I'm 40 with so many friends that mean so much to me. I still haven't grown up yet, so the number 40 doesn't really mean anything to me...at least not yet anyway. I ended the night around 1:30am by going swimming in our pool, then trying to walk off the room spins so I could go to bed without feeling like I was in a tornado...

I Should Have Been A Marine Biologist....

We had maybe 2-3 days in between the girls having pneumonia when they were both feeling fine. My Mom wanted to take us on a whale watch. When I was younger my parents took us on a whale watch and I got the most amazing photos. The whales were literally jumping out of the water for us all day. It was very memorable. This trip proved to be memorable also, but for other reasons.

We set out from Plymouth, MA and it was a beautiful day...just the girls. This is a photo of my Mom with the girls...



Here is a rare photo of me and my girls, although this was actually taken at the end of the day, as you can see our hair has that lovely wind-blown look that is so appealing...




We had great seating on the lower level and there was almost no one else down there... except this nice woman (she had a really cool camera), her son (Bethany hung out with him) and I'm guessing her Mom. Then Jamie noticed this right near where we were sitting:



This could explain why the trip became memorable; that and the fact that we were at the back of the boat - right where the exhaust fumes were...anyway here are some cool photos from the day...



This is one of my favorites...






You can see they got pretty close...


Now I know you probably can't tell what this next picture is...but it's the whale going under our boat...cool, but a little frightening because even though you get lulled into their gracefulness and excited to see them so close, when they go under the boat you remember that all they have to do is nudge our boat and we will capsize...


For some reason though, this never happens; it's almost like they know there are marine biologists on all of these boats who's main goal in life is to protect them and make life better for them...imagine whale watching for your job!

Now it takes a good hour to get out to where the boat actually stops and does the whale watching. We, however, ended up meeting up with some whales on our way out to the watching area...so we had kind of a pit stop on the way. While me and the girls were excitedly running from one side of the boat to the other, snapping away in awe, I suddenly realized my Mom was sitting down, not really looking at the whales..actually she wasn't moving her head at all. Then I noticed she was a little pale...oh no! I realized she must be seasick...this is not good. We were only about 40 minutes into a 4 hour trip! And there is no way off the boat and nothing you can do about it...I never felt so bad for my Mom...she said she took some motion sickness stuff before she left home, but later realized she had mistakenly taken the stuff to calm her down before she goes on an airplane...so she was sick, but calm - ok very sick, but very calm...she kept telling me to go and enjoy myself, but I felt awful...then she leaned over the railing and got sick...I know she is going to kill me for blogging about this, but while it was happening I wanted to laugh so bad because it happened right when there were whales almost right in front of where she was...so everyone was on that side of the boat...watching....my poor Mom. After that she sat down and closed her eyes and stayed that way until the boat started the motors and headed for home. She wasn't the only casualty - there was a little boy who apparently was brought on the whale watch for his birthday because he got seasick and all he kept crying was "This is the worst birthday EVER"...then he got sick and was perfectly fine after that.

Here are a few more photos...enjoy!


This is another favorite:

Just Ride Lugia To School...

File this under, "Huh?"

This is the conversation I had this morning while I was driving my little genius to school:

Bethany: "If I didn't go to daycare in the morning, would you not have to pay for it?"

Me: "Do you mean if you stopped going altogether (she goes every morning so I can drop her off at 8am instead of 830am)?

Bethany: "Yes"

Me: "I would not have to pay for it if you didn't go anymore" not sure I wanted to know the answer..."Why?"

Bethany: "When we were camping me and Jamie found these ball things in the woods and we pretended they were Pokemon eggs. We covered them with pine needles and leaves to keep them warm until we left, then we brought them home with us. I had a dream that when we brought them home, one of them hatched and it was Lugia (a Pokemon character).

Me: (blink, blink)"Umm, what does this have to do with not going to daycare?"

Bethany: "Oh, well if I had Lugia I wouldn't need to go to daycare because I could just stay with Lugia when you went to work and then Lugia could fly me to school."

Me: (blank stare)"Oh"....I was too afraid to ask if she knew Lugia wasn't real.

It's Good To Be Back At The Dexter Lake Club...

Wow! What a vacation! Two months in the Carribean, living in a luxury suite only steps from the beach....oh wait, that's the "happy place" I've had to turn to during all the crap we've gone through over the last two months! (By the way, the title of this post is a reference to the movie "Animal House" in case you were wondering...or maybe you're just so used to my zany comments you didn't give it a second thought)

It will take me a few posts to get everyone caught up...I'm really amazed at how much can happen in two months! Let me first apologize for leaving you, my loyal readers, hanging for all this time, I'm sure you were going through withdrawels (as the reader says, "Hmph, didn't realize she hadn't posted for that long..) Secondly, you can blame my hubby for everything...he's going to love that!

It all started back in August when my husband decided to download some virus protection program from the web (I heard a bunch of you just exclaim "idiot!"). Now, let me preface this by saying the poor guy gets sucked in quite easily...all you have to do in dangle any shiny new gadget in front of him and he's sold. Also let me say that we pay for virus protection through our internet service provider and one other service, so there was no need for anything additional. He still cannot explain why he did it....but he did. Slowly we noticed things changing on our computer, but we kept thinking the other one was changing stuff. Things like color schemes or fonts...small stuff. Then we started getting this flashing pop-up with an alarm saying crippling viruses were detected and we needed to click here now to get rid of them and this window had the Windows symbol in the corner, but it was slightly different - enough for me to realize it was a scam. Within a few weeks our computer was completely shutting down for no reason, when we were in the middle of stuff. Eventually, we were not able to get in at all. It has taken several attempts and different plans of attack, but we finally (and just this morning!) have our computer back in working order....thank you, Ken, for all your hard work in helping us...and when I say "us" I mean me, because it will take a while for me to let hubby use the computer again without supervision.

Now also during this time, My oldest daughter had pneumonia for 2 1/2 weeks, followed by my youngest having it for 2 weeks and missing the first week of school. While my oldest was sick, she had another, unrelated yet more serious medical situation that we had to deal with and still are. It was probably a good thing that our computer crashed during this time, I had about all I could handle dealing with many other situations - I honestly don't think I could have blogged...it would have sounded forced...you know the ones...sometimes I get lazy, what can I say? So we also were dealing with a financial crisis, unexpected (and unwanted in my opinion) relatives coming for a few days which has turned into 1 1/2 months (so far) - can you say super stressful? I know there was a bunch of other stuff in there, but suffice it to say I retreated to my "happy place" so much, I really thought I was living there! I'm thinking "New Year, Fresh Start"...who's with me!

Seriously, Whose Kids Are You?

So we have one week and two days before my kids go back to school. The end of the summer, a time when kids are trying to grasp at every last little bit of sleeping late and doing absolutely nothing for as long as they can...right? Not my little genius. She got up this morning and as I was eating my breakfast, she pitched her plan for how we would spend our Saturday. Doing math. You heard me...she wanted to do math. Her teacher said they should practice their math facts over the summer and she was getting worried because summer was almost over and she had not once done any math! So she proposed we spend our morning practicing math facts...I stared at her like a fly at the end of a frog's tongue...I knew I was getting sucked into something and I could only anticipate how bad it would be. Blink, blink...I stared at her blankly for a minute or so...did she really come from me? Did any of my genes really run through this child? I was seriously starting to doubt it...the mere mention of math when it was remotely summer like was cause for stomach upset and anxiety. She could tell by the blank stare that she was losing me so she backed down a little and said, "OK, just for 2 hours; for 2 hours we'll do math facts". My brain was arguing: the Mother side was saying "hello! this is your job...you want her to grow up and be able to make lots of mon...I mean do whatever she wants, right?". Then the part of me that has never grown up laughed, "Math! Are you kidding? Someone tell me she's kidding...this is a joke, right? Does she know it's Saturday?". The Mom side won out and we did friggin' math facts...ugh...the things we do for our kids!
Since it rained relentlessly today, I spent the entire day cleaning and decided to take a break tonight and watch a movie. It's one from Blockbuster that came through the mail. I had wanted to see it for a long time - I think when it came out years ago it got a bunch of awards. It was "Angela's Ashes"...wow...what a pick me up that was! That had to be the most depressing movie EVER! I could not believe how many bad things happened to one family...and it takes place in Limerick, Ireland and as far as the movie is concerned, it rained in torrents pretty much every day, all year round. Now I know this isn't true because I've been to Ireland, specifically Limerick, and it was not raining. So there.

Taco.......Polo!

We were still experiencing steal-your-breath humidity last week when my Dad came over to spend some time in the pool with us. I don't know how I got on the subject of food (it's never far from my thoughts so it's not too difficult) but we were talking about the taco salad I make. Yes, I make it and no, there isn't much cooking involved so you can see how it is a possibility that I might be able to handle such a task, unsupervised even! Shortly after that, my girls begged us to play Marco Polo, so we indulged and my Dad was "It" first. I thought he kept saying "Taco" instead of "Marco"...so when he tagged me I finally said, "Dad, ya know it's "Marco" right? And he laughed and said that's what he was saying...so now I was "It" and every time I said , "Marco" the wise ass said "Chili pepper"....this, people, explains a lot about my warped sense of humor. So now, instead of playing "Marco...polo"...we play "Taco...chili pepper".

Back to the taco salad. I will admit the photo below is not the most enticing...as a matter of fact, you may look at it and think, "Eww...not too appetizing!"...sorry about that...I'm usually pretty good at the food photos...but I think I was tired and didn't want to try to find a pretty bowl to put it in. Every time I make it, people rave about and I can't take credit for it. About 12 1/2 years ago I worked at Collette Tours and my friend, Suzanne, and I were pregnant with the exact same due date. Our friends from work gave us a baby shower together and it was great. It was held at one of our friends' houses, Joanna. She was the one who gave me this recipe after I had some that day and had to be able to make it at home. I could not believe how easy it was!

So here is the recipe:

• One head of lettuce, chopped up (I use a bag of the bagged lettuce, romaine)
• One bag of Tostitos, crunched up
• One pound of hamburg, cooked and crumbled (I usually use 2 pounds)
• One green pepper, chopped up (I usually use a red pepper)
• One tomato, chopped up
• One bunch of scallions, chopped up
• One package of taco seasoning (I use Old El Paso)
• One package of shredded taco cheese
• One bottle of creamy Italian dressing (large bottle)

Mix everything together and chill for about an hour before serving. A couple of helpful hints: don't mix together until you are ready to chill then serve right away - the chips get soggy. I sometimes cut everything up and cook the hamburg and store in the fridge overnight, then mix everything together right before serving. Also, leftovers dry out really fast; you can add lots of things to moisten the salad to eat the next day - I've added more salad dressing, even if it's not the same kind (see, I'm not even going by a recipe for this...I'm winging it! Me...the one who doesn't cook!), I've added a little mayo, or even tza tziki. (For those of you not familiar with tza tziki, I'll have a post on that at another time). Anyhoo, you must run out to get these ingredients and make this taco salad....like right now....ok not really...but you should try it soon...I know you'll like it, and people will tell you how great it is and that you are such a good cook...then they'll always want you to cook something fabulous for them...hmmm...I'm starting to see why I don't cook....ok maybe you can make the salad and just eat it all yourself? Anyway, enjoy!

I thought you might like to see some of my morning glories. I planted three packages of morning glory seeds in the Spring. Two of the packages have really taken off, winding their way up our fence. When I was growing up I remember these blue flowers growing around our garage door. I thought they were great. Up until last week, only one of the packages had bloomed and they are all hot pink and dark purple...very pretty...but I still wanted the blue ones. The buds are amazing the way they grow...they're all rolled up perfectly, then they gently unfold. I finally got my blue ones this last week:

Aren't they great!

This star-shaped one is one that is unfolding, but not quite there yet. Very cool.

Lots of Laughs at the Kennedy Schriver Funeral...

Not the best photo, eh? Sometimes I forget that the rest of the world doesn't know who the Kennedy Family is as well as people in Massachusetts do. Whether we like it or not, they are like our Royal Family. Anything at all that happens within this family is reported in the news at a moments notice. We tend to treat their weddings like one of our distant relatives weddings, and the same goes for a death in their family. So I know I'm a little late on this, but a week ago, Eunice Kennedy Schriver passed away. I'm sure there are many of the Kennedy clan that have normal, regular jobs and lead normal, regular lives...but it almost seems that they all tend to do something fantastic in the lives. Eunice was no different as she founded the Special Olympics and did it way back when parents were made to feel ashamed about they special needs children. So not only did she do something great, she bucked the trend to do it. I had never even heard anything about her husband before last week...there was so much on the news leading up, and then after her death. her husband, Sargeant Schriver, was "the driving force behind the founding of the Peace Corps"! Can you imagine helping to found an organization as big as the Peace Corps and still getting trumped by your spouse!
So I hadn't posted anything on the passing of Eunice because I just didn't have an angle. I usually come across my own way of seeing a situation. Then last night my Dad gave me the gift of a story about the funeral. My Dad definitely has the gift of the gab and I love it. I may have mentioned in the past how my parents are well known in my church (and I use the word "my" loosely), and when I say well known, my Dad and his friend are like the comedic caretakers of the church and pal around with the pastor on a daily basis. Over the past year, there was a young priest wannabe staying at our church. I guess it's the Catholic equivalent of an internship in the business world. Nice guy, good sense of humor. So in June he was ordained and was given his own church to, to...work in? Guide? Find comic relief in? Which church? The church that was just host to countless famous people coming for the funeral of Eunice Kennedy Schriver. Can you imagine? What luck! Most of us would be thinking, "Is it ok to ask for autographs at a funeral?"...no, not this newly ordained priest. At Communion time he was standing halfway down the aisle with the wine in the goblet and noticed a man coming back from Communion still fiddling with the host (bread) in his hand (blasphemy!)...so he scolded him and told him not to play with it, that he should have consumed it right away! Who was the man? Jon Bon Jovi! This coming from the same priest that also said Stevie Wonder really annoyed him that day because he kept waving at him and Stevie wouldn't wave back....

Diapergate...

Don't worry, I haven't posted a picture of diapers because I'm pregnant...I have to tell you about something bizarre that happened last night.
Last night as I was driving home from work and I was coming up to our house, there was a Chevy Blazer-type vehicle parked on the side of the street right before our driveway. Actually it was in between the house before ours and our house. Now this might not seem odd to anyone so let me tell you about our street. It's a relatively short, dead-end street and our house is almost at the end. There is a piece of land between our house and the house before ours which is all woods except for a strip of grass along the road, which Mike mows. I also need to tell you that we pretty much know every car that comes down our road, even if it belongs to a relative of someone that lives on the street. Now this vehicle was parked next to that woodsy area, up on the strip of grass which Mike mows. I didn't recognize the car so I slowed down to see who was inside - I could only see someone in the driver's seat who looked like they were kneeling on the seat, leaning into the back seat. As I turned into my driveway I could see the passenger back door was open and someone was standing there, leaning into the backseat. Since I am pretty much the reincarnation of Mrs. Kravitz from Bewitched (if you are too young to know who that is, Google or Bing it), this was killing me not knowing who they were and what the hell they were doing on my street, next to my house. So when I got in the house, I stood at the front door, staring at them to see what was going on...this was enough for Mike to go out there and yell to them "What are you doing?". I guess this startled one of the people, a guy, and he said "sorry" then ran into the woods to retrieve a dirty diaper he had thrown there! I assume the other person was the mother and they were there for quite some time. I was flabbergasted by this...who drives down a strange street and parks to change a diaper? And had they never changed a diaper before because it took an awfully long time to get the job done? There is a big BJ's plaza right down the street, with trash bins and everything. What kind of an example are they setting for their child, throwing trash wherever they feel like it...Mike didn't seem to think this was odd behavior at all, he said maybe they were on their way to a friend's house...I looked at him like he just changed into an alien. If you were on your way to a friend's house, wouldn't you just get the job done once you were there? And then, to throw the dirty diaper into the woods? Maybe this is the way they both grew up, with their own parents throwing trash all over residential neighborhoods. Mike said the guy probably threw it back into the woods after he came back in the house. I went for a bike ride later and I noticed they did leave some trash, right out on the grass in the open....now I'll have to go pick it up. I should have just gone over there last night, given them a plastic grocery bag and told them to put all their trash in there and leave on my front steps...would have saved myself the trouble.

Books and Coffee....Coffee and Books

I have seen a world without coffee, and it's a very scary place. I go through phases when I'm trying to eat healthier and I will give up coffee in the process...I know, I know...what the hell am I thinking?! For those of you who are sitting there saying, "Silly woman, coffee is not bad for you, in fact there are studies which have shown coffee, in moderation, can be very good for you." To you, I say, have you ever seen the way I have my coffee? I cannot drink it black, which I believe is the only way it is healthy. I scoff at black coffee...no, somewhere along the way I found that a touch of chocolate in my coffee was quite delectable, even a little addictive. Yes, I have to drink coffee with all kinds of sugary-bad-for-you-goodness in it. And ALWAYS some kind of chocolate in it.

When I try to give it up, my body thinks I'm punishing it and gets very depressed. As I said this happened recently so I decided to cheer myself up. What is better than a cup of coffee with a good book? Almost nothing...minds out of the gutter people...I said ALMOST! Anyway, to cheer myself up I took the girls to the local Borders bookstore. This is one of the mega Borders, with the nice little cafe in the back and comfy lounging chairs all over the store. We all picked out books, then I got a nice mocha coffee and we sat for three wonderful hours reading away. Well, Bethany did more people watching than reading, but I read a whole book and Jamie read several smaller books. What a blissful way to spend an afternoon...

I've always loved reading, but in the last five or ten years, I've really loved having books. I love seeing them stacked haphazardly on a table or shelf and knowing that I have read them all or intend to. I love having books so much that one day when we "hit it big" and move into a big house, we'll have a room that will be called the library. The walls will be filled with books and it will have one of those ladders on wheels and when friends come to visit I can have the butler answer the door and say, in one of those snooty butler-voices, "Ah, yes, she's expecting you. She's waiting in the library".

What? It could happen...

Lazy Daze...And My Neighbors, The Hummingbird Whisperers...

My apologies, I've gone and done it again. I haven't posted anything all week! You gotta cut me a break! It's summer! My computer crashed...uh, we lost electricity....I was locked out of the house...please forgive me! That was my rendition of John Belushi's famous "excuse scene" in the Blues Brothers....anyway, it is summer and the days do tend to get away from me. Especially since we have FINALLY had some nice weather in New England...so usually right after dinner, it's outside to check on the garden and then in the pool. This is usually when I notice the throngs of hummingbirds practically waiting in line to get at my neighbors hummingbird feeder.

We also have a hummingbird feeder hanging off our back deck, just like they do. We almost never had hummingbirds as we always used that red "food" you buy in the store. This must be the hummingbird equivalent of stale saltines. We finally asked our neighbors what they used and he said he makes is with water and sugar. So Mike dutifully made up a batch and like magic we have had hummingbirds daily. They are so amazing I could watch them all day. Now, even though we get them now and then, it's still nothing like my neighbors house...so I call them the hummingbird whisperers...but don't tell them, they don't know that yet....uh, I guess they probably know now if they are reading this!

So just as my neighbors are the hummingbird whisperers, my daughter is the dragon fly whisperer. (warning: close up photo of a dragonfly coming up-skip if you don't like them!) We love dragonflies....they do not bite, as many people think. Many times they will land gently on your hand if you let them, and look up at you curiously with their over sized eyes. With the pool, however, many of them end up in the water. The dragonflies view the pool as a huge bird bath I guess because we watch them swoop in for a drink of water and fly away. Sometimes they swoop too close and if their wings get stuck in the surface tension of the water, they're stuck there. Bethany feels it is her mission to save all of these dragonflies before they end up in the dreaded pool filter. Last week, it seemed that almost all of the dragonflies we came in contact with, were carrying eggs! We never noticed eggs before so I grabbed a photo of one on Beth's finger...she literally has it upside down so I can get a photo of all the little black eggs stuck to it's under side...it's like she lulled it to sleep and can make it do whatever she wants....

I guess it's touch to see the eggs in this photo, but you can see what I mean about her effect on it.

Along with the garden we planted this year, we also planted morning glory seeds. I grew up with morning glories around our garage door. If you are not familiar with them, their vines grow far and their flowers can only be seen in the morning. They literally close up in the afternoon and evening. My favorite part of the flowers are the new flowers that haven't opened yet. The bud is twisted up like this one...
and they have a nice, spiral look to them. I almost stepped in dog poop walking over to take this photo...the hardships I endure for you people! Here it is from a different view...

Moving on to the garden. Before we picked our first squash last week, I had been out checking on said squash, admiring how they were coming along and all the plants were nice and green and leafy. Then I went walking up my deck stairs only to see my neighbor walking up his deck stairs with an armful of nice, big squash and zucchini. My ego instantly deflated.

Since then, however, we have picked a few squash and cherry tomatoes.

Here is a photo of our Barbie peppers, as my friend, Julie, would say....ok not really, but they are still really small...

A few cherry tomatoes, almost ready for the picking....

And is that a cucumber I see hiding in there?

Now this character has been hanging around with his mate and we can't get enough of them. Cardinals are just so red and striking and fantastic. It's usually not that often that we see them, until now. He seems to come around every night after dinner...but he never lets me get close enough to get a good picture of him...

And this is what happens when hubby takes photos. I wasn't there, otherwise this would have been a great photo of my daughter and two of the Patriots cheerleaders at Gillette Stadium. Instead we have shadows in the clubhouse. Brilliant!

Squash That Thought....

I know I haven't posted any garden updates lately, but the garden has been coming along nicely...very slowly...but nicely. I heard from someone that due to the copious amounts of rain we have had in the last two months, it's taking longer for the veggies to grow. So we have nice, big, green, healthy plants....but the veggies are taking their time....except for the squash! We picked our very first home-grown vegetable today! I was so proud...I mean we planted these tiny seeds and now I was holding an actual, edible squash in my hands...

Isn't it a beauty! It's huge! Not really...but we were afraid it would rot if we left it any longer...no idea why...we're new at this, remember? Here it is next to a pencil so you can see how small it actually is....

I decided to cut it up and saute it in EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) as Rachel Ray says and some salt and pepper....look at all the juicy goodness of the earth that flowed from it when I started to cut it up....

This is my home grown sauteed squash...yum!

We have tons of cherry tomatoes, but they just won't turn red....anyone out there know why? They are starting to get too big to be called cherry tomatoes - they already broke a couple of the sticks the plants are tied to! But they are all still green. Now the peppers and cucumbers have to catch up...don't worry, I'll be posting as soon as I pick the first of each!

Steroids Whistle-blowers Need To Get A Life....

Oh yeah, there he is....Big Papi. He's just hit a home run and he's pointing to the crowd and saying, "That's for my fans"....or is he saying, "You, you over there...you got my steroids? I know you do!" Yes, the news is that David Ortiz tested positive....in 2003? OK, let's see, that was....6 YEARS AGO! Get over it people! Can you imagine the stress they are under to perform and entertain? It's no longer about a family going to a game for a nice night out...although I realize Boston has the highest price tickets in the country...the only way we get to go to a game is if the tickets are given to us. Literally if we wanted to go to a game as a family of four the night out would cost us about $400. Many people from Boston go to other teams parks to see Boston play because it's cheaper. Anyway...I digress...
Now, I don't normally write about sports because, well, I wouldn't know what the hell I was talking about. And I don't really know all there is to know about the whole steroids issue so I'll apologize for my ignorance right up front. All I want is for the baseball league to just come out...all at once....and say, OK, every player has used performance enhancing drugs. There. We said it. Now can we all just MOVE ON! Seriously. I'm tired of hearing about who else tested positive! I don't know if this is true, but I heard that some of the "substances" are things contained in over the counter stuff like you would get at your local GNC - like protein powder. I found a list of the banned substances: http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-mlb-banned-substances,0,728091.story
I googled a few of the items and most did come back as either a steroid-type drug, a weight loss drug, or some type of stimulant. And how about the name of this one:

Dehydrochloromethyltestosterone

My point is, can we all just agree that everyone, or almost everyone, in baseball has used a banned substance at some point and they all promise to be good from now on so going forward if anyone tests positive, then we can say"shame on you...you didn't share! I mean...you are going to get in trouble!" Don't come to us with old information expecting to whip us into a lynch mob frenzy out to get the players...as a matter of fact...if anyone else tests positive for banned substances, don't come to us at all; keep it to yourself...we're tired of hearing about it.

Get Your Head Out Of The Clouds....Or Not?

We have admittedly had way more wet weather than we deserve here in New England. We've hardly had a summer at all, as far as this area is concerned. Instead of people opening their pools at the end of May/beginning of June, most people were taking their first dips mid-July. We did have a few weekend days that turned out to be beauties and I was blessed to be able to sit poolside and fully enjoy them. When I was young, I can remember laying on the lawn with my two neighborhood girlfriends and just watching the clouds go by. Why do we stop doing these things? Uh, Karen, hello....the neighbors, they might see us...grown adults, laying on our lawns staring at the sky....and maybe they will think we are drunk or have lost our minds? That's too bad because I think we all need to refresh the kids in us once in a while....and it doesn't have to involve margaritas!

Just look at this crisp, blue sky!
OK, I know there are no clouds yet, although you can see one peeking through the trees...

This was my view most of the few weekend days we have had so far that have been nice...

Then the lazy clouds start to roll by....

Aren't they great? Now the next one is from yesterday. We spent the day at Canobie Lake Park in New Hampshire (an amusement park) and there was a small storm that rolled through just before we left.
So when we exited the park, we were treated to this magnificent sight:

Since I don't have photoshop, please ignore the vast space above the rainbow and the car clutter below...although it does kind of put it into context.

Speaking of storms, in between the nice days, we had many stormy days. We had one storm, in particular, that scared the bejesus out of me. I really thought it was going to turn into a twister right above my neighborhood:

That is a really dark cloud on top and much lighter clouds on the bottom....

I was ready to pack up the family and head for the hills...although funny how that didn't stop me from standing outside to take pictures of it!

So take some time to lay on your lawn and watch the clouds...except the storm ones, especially if it's thundering and lightening. Don't worry about what your neighbors will think...just don't do it naked or anything...then we all just have to walk away whistling, pretending we don't know you.