Norfolk car wash
Homeschooling, horsing around, Suzuki violin, dancing, swimming, reprimanding our Boston Terrier, karate, liberating more fossil fuel in our minivan, and other exciting moments in the life of two spectacular children and their tired parents. For homeschool blogging go to Little Blue School. For book blogging go to The Harpoonist. For live pictures, stay here.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Friday, December 29, 2006
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Friday, December 22, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Off
We're off to Wisconsin. Please visit my homeschooling blog on the local paper's web site right here to read about Sadie's book report video that has 30000 hits on YouTube right now. Hehehe. I'll try and blog from the road.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Why I Love My Husband
Okay, I don't present this as an exhaustive explanation, but it is representative.
On Tuesday afternoon my van got smashed up, and today I found myself driving a brand new one, with the kids sitting in brand new car seats in the back, and fifteen cup holders, and a six CD changer. Now, it's not the fact that he bought me a new van, even though that in itself is impressive. It's the fact that the world went off its axis in a significant way on Tuesday, and for three days I bumped around with nothing to say, no joy, no anticipation, no certainty, and then today he got up, took the world by the bunny ears and yanked it back into alignment, and now it's rotating again. I really *appreciate* that in a man.
In other news, this morning we woke up at 4:00AM and drove up to the Eastern Shore, to Wallops Island where NASA has a space rocket launching thingamajig, and we watched a rocket go from right across a marsh from us up into ACTUAL SPACE, right in front of our eyes. It was very very cool. We all enjoyed it, especially Sadie Grace. It was very early though. We are all very tired.
Our day was good:
1. Rocket goes into space.
2. We get our new van.
3. I get everything mailed that I needed to get mailed.
4. We go to Fellini's and have first bruschetta and then perfect greek salad.
By the end of the day, the children were very very tired. We finished reading Charlotte's Web and I cried. I was GLAD that I cried, because I don't think I would have cried yesterday. I think that yesterday, I would have flipped the book closed and said to myself. "Well well. Sad. But what does it matter anyway? Emotion must be something experienced by those strange people for whom life is not an endless grey wasteland of bitter emptiness thinly infused with a bleak miasma of nothingness." But today I was able to bawl, "No one was WIHIHIHITH her when she DIHIHIHIHIIIIED." Ah, the balloonists. How they float away. Now we're ready to see the movie. IN OUR NEW VAN.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Argle.
About half of my pictures are getting through.
Yesterday Benny had a violin concert. It was outreach concert night at the nursing homes. We did one at the Ballentine (photo coming) and then we had a pot luck Italian dinner at one of the Suzuki family's homes, and then we did another concert at Providence Place. I made about a bushel of spaghetti and meatballs, with the help of Veronica and Phillip, and that's what the pan was for.
The other picture that didn't come through (Jacket) was of Veronica's jacket that I made for her for Christmas. I'm going to try resending that one too.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Eventful Day
1. I have consumed rather a large glass of Pinot Grigio. I mean really a family sized glass.
2. We got in a car accident today.
3. The kids are fine, I'm fine, the dog is fine. Ahno was with us. She is also fine. The car actually crashed into us right in front of the passenger seat. So it's good that Ahno is fine. She was very nearly not so fine.
4. I'm watching "Elf" - starring Will Farrell.
5. The van is not fine. It had to be towed off; I couldn't even drive it off the road.
6. I love "Elf" even though the romantic storyline is kind of creepy. Okay really creepy.
7. I was driving down the road and a woman in in a Volkswagen bug shot out in front of me to make a left hand turn. She had a stop sign, but, apparently, did not see me. The road has five lanes. Two for my side, two for the oncoming side, and one for the turning lane. I was rolling along in the second lane, slightly behind a semi truck in the outside lane. She apparently did not see me because as soon as the semi truck cleared her she leaped out into my lane and -- BAM. I tried swerving into the turn lane and stood on the brake also but she still hit us.
8. We have the most massive tree this year. Ahno gave us her tree, which she decided was too big for her front room. This tree is nine feet tall. And fat. And fully lit up with white lights. We have had a real tree for all the years so far, but this year we have a fake one, and I have to say it looks pretty good in the old gold ribbon.
9. Really, "Elf" is just what I need right now.
10. My first thought was a red wave of total rage that someone had successfully invaded my force field and tried to harm my beautiful children. This was immediately replaced with a thick veneer of attempted cheer so that the children would not freak out and be scarred forever and never want to get back in a car. Understand that my deepest desire was to have a completely flatout hysterical foaming episode.
11. After I called the police I called Dan and cried briefly on the phone, then pasted back on my attempt at a calm demeanor. I hugged the person who hit me. I held her hand and said it would be fine. She lit up a cigarette and I wished desperately that I could join her.
12. Potato chips are good and salty. Now I am drinking a very large glass of water too.
13. Mary Steenburgen does not delight me. However, she does not depress me as much, tonight, as she normally does.
14. Don't know what's going to happen with the van. Ironically, we were going to trade it in. Strangely enough, we might still. We might just have it towed to the dealership and say, "Give us a new one." Question is: Silver again? Or something different?
15. The person who hit us had a car seat in the back, and I said, "Is your baby okay?" and she said that she was on the way to pick him up. She was wearing very slutty boots. Later, she was joined by a short masculine woman and a large bored-looking man.
16. It was amazing to me, even while it was happening, that my "Don't let the kids get upset" mommy-brain could override my "Someone tried to kill my children" mommy-brain. It was pretty good. I did not, at any time, completely wig. I wigged a tiny bit, but I did not wig in any sort of child-scarring way. I think the kids are fine.
17. At bedtime, when I asked Benny what was his best thing all day, he said, "Being near you. Which was all day!" When I asked what was his worst thing today, he said, "It starts with W. And it's work." Yes, the poor little squirt did like 30 minutes of schoolwork today. He loved the part about what coins go together to make different amounts of money. Did not like practicing subtraction with borrowing. Oh, dry your tears.
18. Essentially, someone smacked into us with their car. The van was broke, but we are all fine and no one was hurt. Not a big, at the end of the day, and this is the end of it, deal.
19. I made Benny's favorite food for dinner and did not talk about the car accident while the kids were downstairs. I made shrimp, green beans, and alfredo noodles. Sadie demanded "real" cheesey noodles.
20. I love the scene with the pitch meeting in "Elf." It's so awesome.
Monday, December 11, 2006
No Launch
3:40
Me: How can you just lie there and sleep? Do you think the astronauts are sleeping?
Dan: The only astronauts on that flight are bacteria.
Me: Well don't you think the bacteria are excited?
Dan: Not unless the E stands for excited.
Me: Excited coli?
*then I drag everyone but the baby out of bed and shove them into clothes and prepare food and pack my bag, and I'm just about to go get the baby dressed*
4:15
Radio: The launch has been scrubbed. More information this afternoon.
4:17
Dan: Benny, they're not going to launch the rocket today. There was a problem with one of the satellites.
Benny: Well maybe we should just CALL them and TELL them that we know about the problem! OH HOW EMBARRASSING. A PROBLEM.
Dan: *laughter*
Benny: DAD, I don't think it's FUNNY that it is embarrassing about the problem.
So, here we are up, with our bags packed, ready to be on the eastern shore at 7AM to watch this miserable launch, and they SCRUBBED IT. Now what???
