Secular Confessions

[3andMe]

Last night dh taught the twins how to play 20 questions. It was pretty funny. We narrowed it down to just animals, to make it easier, and started out with either me or dh having the answer. DD asked some interesting questions, like "Is it fierce?" and "Does it do tricks?" DS is so predictable that we were able to guess that his animal was a tiger shark without having to ask him any questions at all.

DD's turn went like this:

DS: Does it have fur?

DD: Yes. It's a kangaroo.

DS: Is it a kangaroo?

DD: Yes!!! It's a kangaroo!!! You are SO GOOD at this game!!!!

[Gwenn]

That's so adorable!

[daylilies]

LOL!!

Today at church Josh got to join me in the sanctuary for a few minutes for the first time. It was the first day back after summer break and they do a thing where the religious education teachers stand up and we read some written words back and forth to each other about our appreciation for them and their looking forward to the opportunity, etc. We also do a nice water communion thing where people come up and pour some water that symbolizes a trip or experience they had over the summer. Then we water a sapling on the church grounds with it, later.'

Josh was, of course, bored out of his mind. But then he got to go to his class and had a good time.

Now they have gone to watch football at my inlaws' house and I have the rest of the afternoon to myself.

[AmeriBrit]

That's so cute, Lydia!

Tomorrow is Travis' first day of pre-school (He'll be going 2 1/2 days a week). I'll have to take pictures and post them of him.....I feel so proud and scared for him at the same time!

We went to the pool today and he was clung to my neck the first 3 minutes...and after that, he would go to the edge of the pool and jump in all by himself! He loved it. We'll have to take him more often so that he can learn to properly swim.

[missychrissy]

Dbf has this horrible habit of cutting the tags off his sweatpants and leaving a hole in the worst possible place and wearing them around the house with no underwear. (Sorry TMI) This weekend my dad came over and dbf was wearing one of those lovely pairs of pants and painting the boat. We were all sitting down by the lake when dbf was bent over painting with his hind end pointing at us and that god awful hole was glaring in our faces. My dad said, "I have never in my life wished for a beebee gun the way I am wishing for one right now."

I'm back to life girls. We were out of power for 84 hours. We're lucky though because we didn't have any damage except the yard being eroded away even more. It made for a nice swimming hole which I utilized to bath and wash my hair in when the water had cleared up.

Rich cooked on the grill and we had peculated coffee so all in all we were fine. The kids got bored and started arguing with each other. Bobbie and Jessica took off with a friend that had power as soon as there was a roadway open from the south side of our town to the north side. That helped a lot. I think Bobbie let her friend pierce her lip. I'm not happy about that. I've told them all that if they're going to do that stuff they should go to a licensed shop for it...but what do I know? I'm just mom.

[daylilies]

Just keep an eye on it so it doesn't get infected...make sure she cleans it and all that. I'm sure you know that though

Glad your power is back on!

[missychrissy]

She didn't do it after all. I know I'm supposed to be a liberal mom, but I'm immensely relieved she didn't do it.

[Bridget]

Glad you are back in action, Chrissy!
Lydia, I love the story about the 20 questions. We have a game called the secret garden where the children pick a card and the rest of the players ask yes or no questions about it to guess which card they have. When I was explaining what a yes or no question was I said, "You can ask, "Is it yellow?" but you cannot ask, "What color is it?" For the first several times we played they all thought that any questions about colors were off limits.

Our friend already went home this morning. He is such an awesome guy and I didn't even realize how much I missed him until the moment I saw his coming up the driveway.
At one point in our conversations I told him dbf gets upset that I don't keep the house clean enough to which dbf replies that I should be grateful that he never complains about my cooking or child rearing. We were rolling that according to dbf I need to be grateful for the things I do for him and and our family that he does not complain about.

[AmeriBrit]

Bridget, your boyfriend is very lucky that you put up with his ways!

I took Travis to his first day of pre-school today; he'll be going all day Mondays, Tuesdays and half day Wednesdays. He kept saying to me as we walked in, "Please don't say goodbye to me." I wanted to burst in to tears, but I assured him that I'd be back for him at the end of the day. The teacher called him over and was chatting with him, so I waved to him. He pouted his bottom lip like he was sad but he waved to me, so I quickly left. I didn't want to prolong the situation. The teacher called an hour ago to update on him. She said he was fine after I left until he saw the little girl with downs syndrome that he knows from daycare. He's frightened of her since she's bitten him a few times and scratched him, too. She said he cried but the little girl isn't in his group, so he doesn't have to interact too much with her. I'm not sure what to do about that. The little girl obviously is very tactile and plays rough and Travis isn't like that.

Here he is in his uniform this morning:

[Bridget]

Travis is such a beautiful boy! I hope his first day goes well. I would imagine if the child that hurt him is often physical with the other children and they are integrating her into a regular classroom that she will have someone shadowing her? Let us know how it goes!

[missychrissy]

Awww...he's a cutie!! I'm sure his first day will be easier for him than you Momma!

I made it to work, and on my bus! I was the only one for quite a while. The driver even joked that it would be funny if I was the only passenger that he had to take all the way to Ithaca. I don't think 1/3 of the normal riders were on.

I tried calling the bus garage this morning because where I get picked up had been closed late last night. I wanted to know if the bus was running and what stops he would be making. The receptionist was very vague and didn't seem to think they'd be doing anything different. Ugh-the north side of our town is still closed and there was a banner on our local news station that said it was running "alternative stops" I couldn't get any clarification!! Luckily, my stop was one he could make. I feel sorry for anyone that we had to skip, I'm not sure how they would have known because the office didn't have a clue. I hate inefficiency like that.

[missychrissy]

When things like that happen to me, I can't help but think how I used to do things when I was a receptionist. I would have known what stops 'we' would be making. If someone had called with a question I couldn't answer and I couldn't get an answer in less than 3 minutes, I would have gotten their number, found out, and called them back. Is that really going above and beyond?

I'm not really witchy even if my post sounds like it. I just cannot grasp not wanting to do your job to the best of your ability. So many people seem to do the bare minimum till it's time to go home.

[daylilies]

That pisses me off too. So many people don't do their jobs. DH deals with that a lot and he has to cover a lot of people's asses and it's unfair.

[Smplyme89]

Wow the spamemrs are on a serious roll today

[Smplyme89]

Travis is SO cute! I hope he has a great day!

[AmeriBrit]

Travis ended up having a great time at school. The teacher reassured him that an adult is with the down syndrome girl at all times. She has a guy that is her dedicated helper now that they are in proper school whereas before at daycare she didn't have that. I told him that she was going to be a good girl now that they are in school. He was excited when I picked him up. He told me about lunch and recess time. His teacher said as the day progressed, he enjoyed himself more and more.

[daylilies]

Travis is so cute! Glad he had a good day.

[Smplyme89]

Aww glad he had a good day!!

[missychrissy]

Me too! I'm glad he had a good day

[demigraf]

Yay, Travis!!!

[demigraf]

DH worked all weekend up at that studio that's a new client of his. On his way out, he saw an older woman who needed help changing a flat tire. She'd called the auto club, but since the studio is pretty far down a country road, they were going to make her wait 1.5 hrs. So he went ahead and changed it for her. She was so shocked that someone would help her like that. Every other person who had finished the recording session that day just walked or drove past her. After he finished helping, he learned she was the first chair violinist for the SF Symphony. She took down DH's info and said she'd send him tickets for the Nutcracker. So DH is taking me to the ballet for doing a good deed. Hooray for my altruistic hubby.


The rest of the weekend was really good. The weather was amazingly beautiful, and hot. It felt like I lived in a proper beach town (rather than on a cold coast) all weekend, and Bodhi & I just hung out with other moms and kids all weekend. It was awesome. I'm finding more and more moms that I like with kiddos that Bodhi gets on well with.

Katy, I'm sorry to hear about your gout too. My father and a daddy friend of ours suffer from it as well. I just wanted to say that your frustrations are completely understandable. It seems like when it rains, it pours, doesn't it? I'm also wondering if you've tried regular yoga. It can be very transformational for the body, and also, most teachers I've had give you meditations emphasizing kindness and patience with your body, helping you to accept of its limitations. Tearing my rotator cuff was a very depressing time for me because it really slowed me down. Yoga helped me a lot (even though yoga tore my shoulder muscle ;)). It might help you feel better overall about all the things you've got going on.

[Gwenn]

Yay for Travis! I'm glad he's enjoying school. He's so adorable!

Myles, that was so nice of your DH to change her tire!

[girlwonder]

So DH is taking me to the ballet for doing a good deed. Hooray for my altruistic hubby.


Katy, I'm sorry to hear about your gout too. My father and a daddy friend of ours suffer from it as well. I just wanted to say that your frustrations are completely understandable. It seems like when it rains, it pours, doesn't it? I'm also wondering if you've tried regular yoga. It can be very transformational for the body, and also, most teachers I've had give you meditations emphasizing kindness and patience with your body, helping you to accept of its limitations. Tearing my rotator cuff was a very depressing time for me because it really slowed me down. Yoga helped me a lot (even though yoga tore my shoulder muscle ;)). It might help you feel better overall about all the things you've got going on.

Yay for the Nutcracker! How nice of you dh to fix her tire.

I try to go to one yoga class a week at the Y, and now that fall is here I can try to get back into a regular schedule to go to Pilates at least once a week and yoga once a week. They are service-y rather than spiritual, though. I don't really have the patience for the more internal work that real practice needs. We will see. DH was supposed to give me 10 yoga classes for my birthday in June, but had trouble with the website and never followed up so I may sign up for something at a higher end yoga place in January- Christmas in bearing down on me and I have three shows this fall and am finally branching out into some other lines at the encouragement of a friend of mine who owns a store and would stock the notecards, tea towels, iphone skins, pillowcases and sheet sets and anything else I can think of that I can print my designs on. I have been working on putting designs on paper and then scanning and making different colorways in photoshop... I totally went off on a tangent!

Chrissy - glad you got power back and managed to make it through what sounded like a long weekend. Was that big gorge from your neighbor's pond overflowing?


Lydia - we played 20 questions yesterday and JoJo had a blast! Thanks for the reminder. She had a hard time not telling me her animal, but it didn't seem to matter that much.

[girlwonder]

Oh, and Travis is adorbs in that uniform! Glad he had a good time despite a rocky start.

[demigraf]

katy, I'm thinking textiles for you. Your patterns are amazing! You're better than Vera Bradley. That's so awesome that you're branching out. Perhaps your craft won't be as time consuming if you're working on less delicate surfaces. Anyway, if you do get the 10 class pass, I hope you get a lot out of it.

I confess, after last night and tonight, I got obsessed with a reality show called "Love in the Wild". I'm usually the first person to roll her eyes at these shows, but somehow, I'm hooked. It's sort of like Survivor meets The Bachelor Pad because it consists of hot singles doing challenges as couples in Costa Rica, and at night they have these elimination rounds where one gender gets to pick the person they want to spend the night with, and at the end of the night if you end up "unmatched", you go home. The grand prize for the winning couple is an all-expense paid adventure trip around the world. I only started watching on-demand, and only the last 4 episodes were available, so I don't know the whole thing, but I have 1 more to go, and I'm totally rooting for this one couple. It's so embarrassing. My DH walked in and caught some of the show with me. He shook his head at me, but kind of got into it himself. He likes the same couple I like. He objectively liked the same guy that I like the best; he commented "I like that guy. He looks smart." and I totally thought that too. LOL. Is this a Confessions thread or what?

Ash - I just saw the photo of Travis in his uniform. Oh, my cuteness. His little hangdog expression just made me want to squeeze him. I've seen that look on Bodhi's face too. I'm so glad his first day went so well for him.

[AmeriBrit]

Thanks, y'all! Dh just set off with Travis for school day number 2. I thought dh would like to take him today since he doesn't get many days off through the week.

Myles, that was a very kind thing that your dh did! It makes me smile that she rewarded his kindness. I like hearing about the goodness of people since i'm such a cynic most of the time when it comes to trusting people. Dh told me that the other day when he left the office to go up town for lunch that he saw a man passed out by the side of the building clutching a bottle of wine. He said everyone was just walking by aand passing him up. I told him I would have a hard time not stopping and making sure that he wasn't dead. He did say he saw an ambulance pull up a few minutes later.

Katy, that sounds very exciting about branching out to other materials. I love your designs!

[AmeriBrit]

Dp

[missychrissy]

That's awesome about the Nutcracker! Your dh is sweet

Yay for the Nutcracker! How nice of you dh to fix her tire.

I try to go to one yoga class a week at the Y, and now that fall is here I can try to get back into a regular schedule to go to Pilates at least once a week and yoga once a week. They are service-y rather than spiritual, though. I don't really have the patience for the more internal work that real practice needs. We will see. DH was supposed to give me 10 yoga classes for my birthday in June, but had trouble with the website and never followed up so I may sign up for something at a higher end yoga place in January- Christmas in bearing down on me and I have three shows this fall and am finally branching out into some other lines at the encouragement of a friend of mine who owns a store and would stock the notecards, tea towels, iphone skins, pillowcases and sheet sets and anything else I can think of that I can print my designs on. I have been working on putting designs on paper and then scanning and making different colorways in photoshop... I totally went off on a tangent!

Chrissy - glad you got power back and managed to make it through what sounded like a long weekend. Was that big gorge from your neighbor's pond overflowing?


Lydia - we played 20 questions yesterday and JoJo had a blast! Thanks for the reminder. She had a hard time not telling me her animal, but it didn't seem to matter that much.

You're so crafty and talented! I'm sure whatever you do will be simply stunning.

And yes, the 'gorge' is from my neighbor's pond. I'm actually thinking about gathering some large, flat 'river rocks' and seeing if they'll leave it. We can possibly frame it in with natural stones and put koi (sp?) fish in there.

Thanks, y'all! Dh just set off with Travis for school day number 2. I thought dh would like to take him today since he doesn't get many days off through the week.

Myles, that was a very kind thing that your dh did! It makes me smile that she rewarded his kindness. I like hearing about the goodness of people since i'm such a cynic most of the time when it comes to trusting people. Dh told me that the other day when he left the office to go up town for lunch that he saw a man passed out by the side of the building clutching a bottle of wine. He said everyone was just walking by aand passing him up. I told him I would have a hard time not stopping and making sure that he wasn't dead. He did say he saw an ambulance pull up a few minutes later.

Katy, that sounds very exciting about branching out to other materials. I love your designs!

I'd have a hard time checking on someone passed out with a wine bottle too. I like to think I'm helpful when I can be (I did run back to my house and get a gas can to help a lady stranded 2 miles from my house) and get her gas once. She had a Toyota Prius and thought that even though she was low on gas the car would still run on electric till she got across town to the gas station. It didn't. It still doesn't completely make sense to me why not, but as soon as her gas was out her car shut off and even the batteries wouldn't run it. Things like that, I'll help with. Passed out drunks? Not so much.

[Ky'sMom]

That was very nice of your DH Myles! I also like random acts of kindness people say that I'm too nice to others in some ways as I will give money and DH is mad at me because I let a guy hitch a ride in the back of his pick up recently before I got my van repaired. I figured if he was crazy and tried to do something to me he wouldn't have a chance anyway since he was in the back and I was in the cab and I could just drive him to the police station if necessary.

I probably would pat a drunk and ask them if they were okay, or I would call 911 and tell them someone is passed out on the street if the person is really stinky. I have done that before. One of my co-workers was shocked one day because I paid for a man and his family to have their car towed when we went to the grocery store on lunch on day. It was pretty cold that day (cold for here anyway it was probably 25-30 degrees) and their car had broken down and they had a baby in the backseat. The lady looked like she wanted to cry and the man was asking people for $5 a piece for a tow home because they had spent all their money on groceries and didn't have anything left so I went to the ATM and took out $40 and gave it to them. My co-worker said that was too much to give to people and that they may have been scamming but really $40 wasn't going to break my wallet at that time and I didn't want the baby out there in the cold, plus I really believe that they were telling the truth and I just don't like to jump to conclusions. Once I ran out of gas and dumb me forgot my wallet at home so I had to ask people for a couple dollars and promised them after I got gas I would go down the street to the bank and pay them. I was embarrassed to do it and no one gave me even a buck so I asked the cashier at the gas station and he let me get $5 and I went to the bank and brought it back to him, he was really surprised by that and thanked me profusely even though I told him he was the one who deserved the thanks since he was the one who helped me out.

And Ash, I agree Travis is just adorable in his little uniform. So glad he had a good first day!!

Erin

[missychrissy]

ShannonG & I did that when we were traveling AZ together. We saw a guy with kids broke down at an exit somewhere outside of Tuscon and we both gave him some $. It could have been a scam, but you know what...like you said Erin, that $ wasn't going to break me and if he was scamming people that's on him. I'll err on the side of helping people and don't worry about it if I get taken. I don't give what I can't afford to lose.