Miscellany

We have an annoying virus on El Computator, so I haven't been blogging because the virus is annoying. Must take care of that asap. In the meantime, beware our emails!

My parents are back home from their visit here and Memphis. We really enjoyed seeing them, but it was crazy with two jobs, three kids and a dog and it seems like we hardly got to see them at all. And somehow, the week got away from me and I hardly took any pictures! Disappointed!

Claudia'a presently in Texas with Cutter and Co. and from what I understand, she's having an absolute blast. So far, that I know of, they've done the safari thing in the car (a zebra put his entire mouth around one of her hands when she tried to feed him and that was deemed "COOL"!!), they went to the San Antonio Zoo, which is an awesome zoo, did a day trip to Houston and spent the day and into the night at Schlitterbahn, which is a mucho primo water park. We go to pick her up from the Chicago airport on Sunday. I so Can't Wait! Our house is very weird without Claudia.

Jordan and Sam have been having a really fun time with our babysitter this week. She's been taking them to the library, fixing picnic lunches, baking cookies and playing all sorts of games with them.

In other news, Jamie and I are leaning towards supporting Hillary. Yes, it's true. We liked her answers in the last debate better than Obama's and Jamie pointed out that she looks more fetching in pink than Obama does.

Cool thing: Google Earth. We're spying on you!!!

I'm organizing our main livingroom bookshelf by color like this one:



We have a pretty relaxing weekend planned. Jamie and I were invited to a pool party tomorrow by some new people we've met, but we had babysitter issues and some other stuff, so we won't be going. Too bad, because we like the people a lot.

And here are some miscellaneous photos of lately:


Sammy on her tennis award day.




Floating candle Jordan made for us. It was very cool, she had the idea and did it all herself and surprised us with it. It has some pretty marbles at the bottom.


I have about zero experience growing things from seeds, but I'm so excited because this summer I've had pretty phenominal success. The gourds are going like gangbusters. Times like this I wish I could do time lapse photography.






Picking the girls up at camp.

This Week

Sunday Jamie took Claudia and Jordan to a sprinkler party and it sounds like they had a really good time. Jamie and Claudia both had friends there to hang out with. There weren't any kids Jordan's age, and Sam was at her mom's, but she had the sprinklers to play in. I didn't get to go because I had band rehearsal from noon to five in preparation for an upcoming concert.

Today my parents are arriving! They're planning to stay through Sunday. We'll have a nice visit but they're from Austin which is many, many shades cooler than Indianapolis so as far as activities go, I have no idea what we're going to do while they're here.

When they leave on Sunday Claudia's going to go with them. They'll head to Memphis to spend a week hanging out there and visiting my mom's family and then they'll head to Texas and Claudia's going to spend a week with her friend, Cutter's family and then she'll fly back to Indianapolis. Also next Sunday, Sammy and Jordan go to camp for a week!

Last Week

Wow, it's been a week since I posted to the blog! But it was an eventful week.

Last Sunday, in spite of a bunch of rain, we went to the Fisher's Freedom Festival and afterwards we watched fireworks. I have no idea why they do this thing not on July 4th every year. Weird, but we had a pretty fun time.

My car was in the shop all week, so Jamie and I shared a car. That's always not fun, but what are you gonna do?

Friday I was at home all day so I took all three girls to their tennis match day. Then that night we did the Blue Moon Night Hike at Ritchey Woods Nature Preserve. We missed it last year so I jumped on it this year right when they started taking reservations back in April, I think. It was only $2.00 per person and when you get there they have a fire and roasting sticks ready and you can bring whatever you want to cook for dinner or snacks. We took drinks and stuff for smores and hotdogs. Then the Preserve employee gives a talk on the woods and wildlife there and after that, she led us on a 45-minute hike through the very dark woods. She did owl calls (but the owls didn't answer back), we heard coyotes and saw a million lightening bugs (so beautiful). There was also a pioneer graveyard so I want to go back during the day because I love exploring cemeteries.

Saturday I had to work most of the day and then last night we went to a barbeque at some friends' house. I say "barbeque" as in, we went to a party where they served grilled meats. Jamie says here that means barbeque sauce was used. We took our fabulous jalapeno potato salad (I got the recipe out of my mom's Peachtree Tea Room cookbook. Don't tell my mom I have it!!), the schmancy three-chocolate cookies we make and my friend, Jennifer's cranberry-orange coconut cookies we call crack smackers because they're so awesomely good, and salsa.

Today we were too wiped out for church so we've been just mostly hanging out. Jamie studied for his actuarial exams and took Jordan to the library and he's going to take her swimming later. I took Claudia for a haircut and her hair turned out so cute!! She wants to dye it blue so we consulted a former blue-haired family member, Jason, on how to go about it. I've never colored my hair before so I'm completely clueless on the subject. According to Jason it's a major pain in the ass and Leah suggested maybe just dying the bottom four inches or so. I think that's a good idea. Another friend of mine suggested I take her to a salon. Another good idea!

This week I'm off work Monday-Wednesday and Jamie's off Wednesday-Friday. I was planning on taking Claudia and Jordan to Marble Falls next week to see their dad, but you may have noticed that Marble Falls has been in the news a lot lately as an area with a bit of a flooding problem and their dad's parents' house flooded twice last week. So since their dad lives with his parents, it's not a good time to visit.

The Weekend

Friday night Jamie and I went to see Knocked Up. It was really well done--super funny and surprisingly affecting and we're still talking about it.

Saturday we drove to Ft. Wayne and had lunch with Beverly, Walter, Grandma and Grandpa and the girls. Beverly played the cd Sammy and Jordan made at the recording studio for us and it was a really nice time.

This morning we went to church and then after lunch the girls and I went shopping which gave Jamie time to take the cliched Father's Day Nap (try and find a Father's Day card that doesn't mention it). After that Jamie took Sammy and Jordan swimming while I made my Aunt Sandy's Mandarin Orange Cake (oh, so good!!)and then when they got back we had cake and presents before Sam went to her mom's house.

Tomorrow I'm off work for the day and Jamie has the week off and I have no idea what we're going to be doing.


This is Claudia watering Zoe's garden after church. Zoe is in Claudia's religious education class and she has bone cancer. Our church has a community garden and Zoe already had a spot in it when she was diagnosed, so lots of people are helping with it.


Sammy watering the garden.

After the girls watered the garden, I tried to get some nice photos of them because it was such a pretty spot.

Here's Claudia doing her "first grade smile" and Jordan doing the devil horn thing:



Here's Claudia shoving Jordan:



Here's Jordan doing the devil horns to Sam:



Almost a nice photo, but Claudia has her hand over her face.



And....good enough.

Me, again!

I'm feeling chatty today, apparently. I need to get off the computer and go practice my clarinet. I found out today that in addition to rehearsal of the full band, we also have sectionals. Damn. It's harder to blend in with the crowd in sectionals. One might even say, completely impossible.

The report from Ft. Wayne is that everyone's having a fabulous time and also--very well behaved! Jamie and I are going there tomorrow to fetch the girls home and to visit Jamie's grandparents.

You know there havent' been that many times in my life when I've seen something and just totally fell in love with it and felt like I had to have it. I mean, really, just a handful of times. So odd that it's happened to me twice in the last week. Some of the things in the past were the Blenko art glass pitcher (that I still don't have and I don't know why because they're not that expensive),



the Ann Taylor charcoal gray wool interview suit that was twice what I wanted to spend (but I bought it anyway), the black suede pumps. So anyway, the other day when we were walking back to our car from the Pride Parade, we stopped in a little fair trade shop and there was this handbag, pale, pale aqua silk with 1/2 inch round gray mother of pearl buttons sewn all over it and I just feel like I have to have it. But it's soooo not in the budget. But I realized that handbag was one of my handful of items the other day when I found myself at my desk at work thinking about it and that one I Love Lucy episode popped into my head--the one where Lucy exceeds her dress allowance so she charges all her friends' groceries on Ricky's charge account and then her friends pay her cash. And of course, with the cash she buys this "darling" dress that she just had to have. Anyway, I thought that was funny, and no, this doesn't mean that we have a Lucy/Ricky relationship--we're very equal in everything. actually, I'm the boss. shhhh!!!! Don't tell Jamie!

Oh, and the other thing that I saw recently, that I completely fell in love with were these potholders Melissa posted on her blog. Now I'm going to have to learn to quilt. Thanks a lot, Melissa!!!

Oh, drat! The husband's going to be home any minute and I haven't even started dinner! LUUUUCCCCYYYYY!!!!