what has Susan been up to????

sorry! I have been way to busy to blog. BUT......wanna know what I have been doing??? check out Cecilie's blog! course.......you are going to need to understand Danish!

the state of the state......

it seems, from a Nor Cal perspective, that the southern half of our state is on fire. I realize that isn't the actual case but it is an ever present thought on everyone's mind. today I e-mailed constantly with a friend who was under constant wait for *the call*. the reverse 911 call (which I didn't even know they could do) telling them to move out. her kids were home from school and her car was packed to go. they just waited.

this got me thinking. yes, I know we are not in a huge fire hazard spot. and yes I know that we didn't buy a house in a flood plane like many have. but hazards happen. you just never know! so tonight at dinner we had a few heavy conversations. after discussing the car that followed a girl to school this morning and reviewing what the boys should do in that situation we talked about disaster preparedness. the big question: if we had 1 car and 1 hour to pack up and go, what would we take? we talked about what was replaceable and what wasn't. R pointed out that we were taking a lot of *mom* things. he thinks the photos are for me. I didn't correct him. but I have had a friend lose her childhood home and all her family's photos. I watched her sister cry when I gave her my copy of our sorority photo.....the only one we were both in because we were a few years apart in college. those photos are for D and him!!

anyway......we talked about what we would take. what we should remember to take. and what we are going to do to be prepared in case we do need to go. in an hour. in just one car.

what about you? consider what is happening in So Cal as a fire lit under you. talk with your loved ones and do a little planning. pray you never need it, but be prepared in case you do!!

another fun and goofy project.....

Chad Darnell....the 12of12 man is celebrating all those great t-shirts we have collected over the years.......he has declared Monday the 22nd T-Shirt Appreciation Day. I'm gonna do it. will you?!?!?

and while we are having fun......check out MacDaddy's discussion about the differences in places to live. I have to agree with everything said in regards to the places I have either lived or have reasonably decent knowledge about. but ALL of them are funny!!

maybe I should start *Finger Friday* where I point to things on other people's blogs?!?!

ain't no sunshine when HE's gone......

yeah, I know.....I took liberties with Bill Wither's song. cut me some slack! lol!!

so dh and R have been at science camp all week. I talked with J briefly Monday night and got a text from him yesterday morning. that is it! heck, I had more communication when they were at Scout camp last summer where there was supposedly NO cell connection! whatever! lol!!

anyway......last weekend the weather was beautiful. this entire week it has been rainy and overcast. just plain ol' yucky weather! sure enough....they come home tonight and this weekend is back to beautiful weather! so sometime yesterday I started humming that song. funny, huh?!?!?

while I have missed them, I have spent most of my non-work time being a bum. D goes to bed so early that I really have a lot of free time in the evenings. instead of being productive.....which I really needed to do....I instead watched tv and went to bed early. and I slept......a lot!!! I woke up 30 minutes later than I need to when I have to take R to school and I didn't have anyone snoring and waking me up. I even fell asleep on the couch yesterday! obviously this weather is making me think it is time to hibernate. hopefully when the sun returns this weekend I will come out of my cave and get some stuff done! not too much time until the C's visit.....Halloween.....and the LM crop!!

12 of 12 - the ORANGE edition!

this almost could have been called the FORGOTTEN edition!! we all know I am not a good weekend blogger.....I just try to not be on the computer as much. and today was a day of running around in circles....I'll explain more as we go through this entry.

so......this is what it looks like as we get ready to leave in the morning. 2 boys and a big ol' pile of stuff! lol!! it takes us 5 minutes to get from the house into the car! crazy, isn't it?!?!?

R always gives T a treat when he puts her collar on. it is how he has trained her to come when he calls her so he CAN put her collar on! lol!! look how attentive and patient she is for him! she doesn't even care if Mommie is taking her picture! lol!!

traditional odometer photo. can you believe we were running late and I forgot to take it in the driveway like normal? so this is at about 7:15. a bit warmer than when we walked out the door. and look at me pile those miles on my car! uuuuugh! lol!!

Starbucks is giving away a free download every day through November 7th. each day is a different artist. there have been some that I don't like at all and some really great ones. the place I normally get my Starbucks at isn't a full service store so they don't have a sign like this. but I didn't stop there this morning and instead grabbed a mocha by work (I had thought I wasn't going to get one and changed my mind!). that store had a sign so I took a picture of it!

Sharon sent me a book she had read. this is it (obviously). it is slow getting in to and is told from various points of reference. I am enjoying it but not enough to have it take over my life! lol! it did, though, keep me good company at lunch today.

I had rented Fantastic Four for J & R to watch. was given the dvd case to return sans the actual dvd. so on my way home from work I stopped by Blockbuster to give them their dvd. check out my creative self-portrait! lol!! not the greatest photo but it isn't like I am going to use this for our Christmas cards! lol!!

one of the things that sucked up my time today was going to get tickets to a concert. I could have pre-sale bought them online 2 days ago for full price however starting at 10am Saturday you could use a $5 off coupon (the one in this photo). anyway.......I had to stop by the coffee shop to get the coupon. this morning (Saturday the 13th) I had to drive R to a Scout event. it was less that 5 miles from where the box office for the concert venue is. dropped him off and headed home in time to buy the tickets. THEN found out (because no one had mentioned it) but the coupon is only good for a few selected rows in the way way back of the arena........AND those tickets weren't released yet! so after dinkering around with the lady at Ticketmaster and then calling the arena, poor D got stuck back in the car and we drove to the arena to buy the tickets directly. they said if I bought the rows they would refund the difference when the promoter gave them the directions to open up the discount. but the lady at the arena and I went through and picked out the possible seat locations available and I ended up getting us some rather nice seats (you know.....for a family of 4 who didn't buy their tickets when they first became available aaaaaarrrrggghhh!!!!). anyway.....by going to the arena I saved Ticketmaster's fee so the tickets ended up being $10 cheaper than they would have been with the coupon.......and were better seats......but cost me 2 hours of my life! I still am happier now with the end result. oh and the dude at the coffee place gave me a coupon for a buy 1 get 1 free yesterday!

so......now back to actually what happened on the 12th and not just the aftermath...... NO!! we did NOT get flu shots! BUT this sign has been up for about a month. every time we drive by or go to the chiro we joke about getting our flu shots. honestly, I am not really sure why anyone would get a shot and how they are supposed to benefit you. figure they are based on the previous year's major strains of flu.....which WON'T be this year's flu. so what are you really protecting yourself from? anyway......we are not old or immune deficient so we don't get them.

J hates our staplers.....period.....end of sentence. a stapler can work fine for me for a long long time and then J gets it and it doesn't work. don't know why. and frankly don't care. so we went to Office Max to get some manila envelopes for R and J picked himself out the exact stapler that he personally wanted. let's hope this solves the whole stapler issue!

because our morning routine is all different and I am not quite used to it, I forgot to get a gas price picture. so on the way home last night I took one. it is dark and fuzzy because it is after 7 and it is dark! for the record, AMPM was 10 cents a gallon cheaper!

seems R has a new Crush at school. seems Crush has her e-mail addy written in her lab book. seems R or a friend had to check Crush's work Friday. seems someone wrote down Crush's e-mail addy and sent her a note. this is R replying to the e-mail Crush sent back!!! (insert the smoochie kissie noises Mommie was making while R was typing this out! lol!)

the bonus for this month was ORANGE. I took a really great picture of this obnoxious ORANGE pen that the FedEx/Kinkos sales rep brought us, but decided that I wanted a photo of my favorite Halloween candle instead. it doesn't take a good picture (obviously) so I will tell you that it is a gel candle. you can see through it......like Jello.....and there are things IN the gel. when lit, the whole thing glows! rather cool.

and last but not least............D getting his treat from the Halloween countdown calendar. the boys take turns and D gets the even days. (they split the 31st so don't worry.....it is all EVEN!!!) today's treat was stretchy body parts! D got an ear and a hand. I can't remember which day R will get his stretchy body parts but he has a foot and a nose! lol! so gross.......SOOOO boy!!


with that I big you adieu until next month!!!

it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.....

and not just because it is the first cold and rainy day of the season either!! (or that I had a peppermint mocha this morning! lol!)

people, including me, always complain about Christmas being pushed too early. I don't want to see decorations or hear carols before I have made myself sick on leftover Halloween candy. really, I would prefer not to see them until Black Friday. THAT is the official start of the Christmas Season in my mind. I want the craziness condensed into that 5ish week period. it gets diluted if it is stretched out too long.

anyway....true to the title of my blog.....I digress.

as a crafter, one truly can not confine Christmas activities to those 5ish weeks. making Christmas cards and such take too much time to get it all done. and when I cross-stitched I would complain in June that I couldn't find the pattern that I wanted! with a crafter's enthusiasm, I have somehow gotten myself involved in 2 different Christmas album/project classes!

the first class was through Lisa Damrosch's blog where I helped her name her class and thus won myself a free ticket to class! (cool, huh? cool like a penguin eating his favorite fish flavored ice cream while sitting on an ice block!). so starting November 1st I will be a happy class member of BPS' Make it Merry. a planner, an advent calendar, some cards, and a wreath are the projects and sound fun!!

the second class is at a lss Green Tangerines. I really wanted something stampish/scrappish for C and I to do while she is visiting. the local stamp store wasn't having a class that weekend but Weds I found out they were having a WAY CUTE Holiday Album class with Melodee Langworthy that Saturday morning! JUST the kind of thing I thought we would like. so convinced J that we could squeeze one more activity into our plans, check with C and then signed us up!

exciting times these......I am telling you! lol! on yes, top it off with the fact that Lisa D also gave me a gift certificate as part of my prize AND because I am a hoarder I still had a discount code from the same store her gc was from......so I got a great deal on some nifty neato keen Imaginesce rub-ons for me and a friend today!!

taking my 12of12 pictures.....will post those in the am. they are not at all as exciting as this post was! lol!!

oh yes.....and if you are ready to begin getting prepared for Christmas yourself.....check out Kerri's Gift Tag swap!!

Bazzil....and a reminder!

first let's get the business over with......tomorrow is 12of12!!! if you don't yet know what I am talking about check out Chad's blog over there on the right in my list of blogs!!!

now........Bazzil! aaah Bazzil!!! I have too much. well not that you can really HAVE too much beautiful cardstock....but I have a whole lotta Bazzil! so back in June I decided to go on a diet. yep! no more cardstock purchasing through the end of 2007! frightening, huh?!?!?!? but....can I tell you.....I haven't needed ANY!!! and since the day I went on this *diet* I have completed 79 layouts!!! not 79 pages.....but 79 layouts!!! that probably translates to about 110-110 actual pages! and I have yet to not have the color that I need! a few times I have had to look a little harder than normal.....but I have always found it. does this give you some idea of just how much cardstock I have??

oh yes.....and one night I was kinda bored and decided that all those misc pieces of cardstock I have in various places OTHER than in their color coordinated keepers needed to be sorted by color and put away. so I got them all out and started sorting. 10 INCHES of cardstock....... I probably should have just started working from that stack! lol!! I wasn't actually able to fit it all into the paper keepers and still have a stack waiting to get put away.

so far I have survived 4 months.....and only have 2 1/2 months to go. other than while I am at the LM crop I think this is going to be easier than I had first thought! I figured I would be going through cardstock withdrawals by now.

I must still be in shock.....

Saturday R was with me and we were running errands one of which was a stop at the grocery store. R stated that we should make sushi at home. no problem except that no one in our family but me LIKES sushi! so his statement was a little shocking. only a little since he is almost through with his term of Japanese language at school. so I tell him that we should do that and we decide that this weekend wasn't going to work due to other plans but that the next weekend might. I asked what we needed and could we get it now or should we get it closer to when we were making the sushi.

that is when it happened.

R lists off what we need: short grain rice (we have), seaweed wraps, crab, cucumber, and avocado.

I didn't hit anyone luckily but I know that I caught my breathe. crab? no one but me likes. cucumber? the boys don't like and J basically tolerates in a salad as long as there is dressing handy. avocado? turns them all green....and not in a good way.

so basically R has asked to plan a meal using all foods that no one really likes and he thinks this is a good thing. maybe I should plan pizza for dessert??

this dog is NOT senile!!!

at T's most recent vet appointment, the doctor talked to J about canine senility and that we should keep a casual eye on T for it as she is one darn old pup!! we have already given her a chair to help her get into bed with us but she continues to refuse to use it to get down from the bed! lol!!

anyway......T has this habit of joining me in the bathroom. she does it with no one else, but if I am in the bathroom she has to be in there with me. most of the time the bathroom door doesn't close and click so she is able to push it open with her nose.....and does! lol!!

I am completely used to this but recently started thinking about WHY she does it......and I realized that it goes back to when I was pregnant with R. I used to work 45 minutes away from home so by the time I got home I had to pee so bad that I would run into the bathroom. there wasn't time to say hello to T so she would follow me in there and hop on my lap. this way she got her attention and I got to pee!!

yeah......that was almost 12 years ago. she still remembers. sometimes she still wants to jump on my lap but most of the time she just comes out of habit! lol! I guess we will know she is senile when she stops following me in there, huh?!?!?

and isn't it ironic?

over the weekend R discovered a series of books called Choose Your Own Adventure books. his excitement was funny because a few years ago I had found one of these books in my boxes from childhood. he hadn't been interested in them at all. I had debated giving the book away but had kept it because I had enjoyed it so much.

last night I told R that I had still had it and he asked me to find it, which I did. incidentally, it is the first one published. (The Cave of Time.....with the same cover you can see on the Wikipedia link above) the other two that R has are in the #50s! lol!!

R was all excited about the book and took it with him to school this morning. in the car he opened it up to find an inscription: "to Trevor on his birthday 1979. I hope you live to the end of this book." that last line was paraphrased as R has the book with him. it was a reference to the fact that there is the possibility of perishing during the course of the adventure.

Trevor turned 11 in 1979. that is how old R is right now. today Trevor would have turned 39. always a hard day for me, after hearing the note in the book this morning I quietly cried while driving the boys to school. Happy Birthday Trevor..... you are missed!

isn

Sunflower Seed Boys' alter ego revealed......

first introduced on September 20th, Sunflower Seed Boy sightings are a highlight of our morning drives! if we don't see him we wonder where he is. when we do see him the boys wave hello and start wondering about him and his adventures.

this morning, we passed SSB on our way to carpool duties. we were running ahead of schedule and B (carpool boy! lol!) was too.......so we had enough time to start contemplating a Starbucks stop. shortly thereafter we passed a down bicyclist. we really couldn't tell who it was but it looked like SSB or his brother (coined Super Dude). we couldn't tell what had happened (car accident, broken bike, whatever) but someone was laying down. so I did what any good mother would do, I turned around and went back to see what was going on. another cyclist had stopped to offer assistance by the time we got back to the scene. turns out SSB's chain broke and threw him from his not-so-trusty steed. his knee was injured but not bleeding. no broken bones.....just a kid who was going to be sore for awhile. I offered a cell phone to call home and he said there was no way to contact his parents. I offered a ride back home or to school.

I guess a lady in a SUV with 2 kids isn't perceived as too much of a threat because he accepted the ride. (or maybe he recognized us from the morning trips?!?!?) anyway.....we threw his bike in the back and he piled in the front seat. on the way to his school (which we obviously pass daily) we learned about our super hero. I won't go into details.............. to protect his identity.......but we did find out that he really IS a hero!! our SSB is in ROTC at his high school!

R got the courage to ask about the origins of his sunflower seed backpack and found out a neighbor gave it to him. the boys were SOOOO funny in the back seat all beaming with excitement! lol!!

we also found out that SSB would be moving and soon we wouldn't see him on our morning drives. as sad as it will to not have a familiar sight, I am kinda glad we know. this way we won't worry about why we don't see him! when we got him to his school the boys both said bye and waved.

......barely got the boys to their school on time......no Starbucks.