Saturday

Great day today! This morning was waffles and reading stuff on the internet with Jamie. Then we split the grocery/Halloween list in half and each hit two stores with one child in tow (Sammy's at her mom's house tonight). For Halloween I found four cool orange and green pumpkins for the kids to carve and also some funky large-ish squash that will make some interesting jackolanterns. I will try not to get all Mothra on the squash and carve a lace pattern in them.

Dinner was chili. We eat mostly vegetarian these days, except the littles, so maybe that's why it seemed especially good. We deemed it El Chili Loco--kinda spicy!

We're going to a Halloween party tomorrow so I spent a fair amount of time tonight trying to do my hair like Sarah Palin's, including cutting my own bangs (I don't want to talk about it!) and trying to convince Jamie to go as Todd Palin.

After that crushing defeat, while Jamie studied math, Claudia, Jordan and I made monster cupcakes for the party. This is what the heads turned out like. I'll assemble them at the party tomorrow.

Pint-sized Fashionistas!

Mr. Rieger reports this morning the little girls were planning another fashion show for tonight so he showed them style.com and when he left for work, they were watching a Michael Kors show.

Photos

Someone in our house thinks they're very funny! (magnets on our fridge):


The little girls had a fashion show tonight. They all three watched the final episode of this season's Project Runway today, so I guess that's what inspired it. This is Sammy modeling my 8th Grade graduation dress.

Here's Sam wearing an outfit Jordan put together:

This is Jordan wearing what I think was a Halloween costume one year.

Here we have Sam modeling the wedding dress from my first wedding. Two out of three children have admitted they think this dress is "weird". They just don't understand 80's fashion!

This is Jordan modeling the same dress.

This is Sammy modeling the dress I wore to the homecoming dance in 11th grade. It was a little lower cut on me and the assistant principal told me I should put on a sweater. I don't have to tell you, I did not put on a sweater! GOD!

Claudia in her very cool Gamago tshirt with the robot on it.

Flowers my boss gave me.

We're a multi-tasking family! Jamie making dinner for Jordan and watching the Colts lose.

Jordan working on a project for school and eating dinner.

Claudia at the Barack Obama rally.

Claudia at her band concert last Wednesday. Note the first chair position of our Claudia!

Wednesday

All's well in Los Angeles with Amy and Marinda. The fire came within 20 feet!!! of their house. They have smoke and soot damage to deal with and no electricity for the refrigerator but they didn't lose everything, thank God.

You must!!! go read Jana's account of her Wheel of Fortune audition. Jana's one of the smartest people I know and also very fun and always up for an adventure. They so need to pick her for their show!

Sammy's back home tonight and just in time for Claudia's band concert (have I mentioned she's first chair?!? Also, have I mentioned this is probably because I breast fed her for 13 months? Because I am a good mother? It's true!) and then on to watching the debate (I am so very freaking tense about this debate!!!). We're thinking of taking the chicklets to the Obama headquarters for the debate watch party. Then Jamie and I are going to watch the Project Runway Season Finale at 11:00.

I got a couple of test results back this morning from my neurologist's office--1. I do not have a brain tumor or anything like that causing my migraines, 2. I do have to go spend another night in the hospital for further testing because of the results of the other. Buh-LURG!!

I have Apron Strings, the acoustic version, by Everything but the Girl stuck in my head for three days now. I've tried thinking about Aerosmith's brain sorbet song, Love in an Elevator, to clear it out of my mind, but it's not working. The other morning I was trying to listen to the radio in the car and NPR was holding one of their (apparently) bi-monthly pledge drives and one of the children had taken all the cd's from the car (Oh, I have my suspicions about which of the children it was!) so I was forced to listen to Indianapolis radio (pathetic) but I happened on New Hit Song by Indianapolis Standards!, the circa 1992 super (unintentionally) funny rock ballad by Aerosmith, Don't Want to Miss a Thing:

Dont want to close my eyes
I dont want to fall asleep
Cause Id miss you baby
And I dont want to miss a thing
Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream will never do
Id still miss you baby
And I dont want to miss a thing

So I called up Jamie to taunt him, as I always do when I hear this song (I do this completely non-seriously), "You see how Romantic Aerosmith is? What's wrong with you?!?" And I usually get an "I'm TIRED" in response which makes my heart all melty in a way that an obsessive stalker watching me sleep never really would be able to. I'm telling you, that Jamie is the lid to my pan.

Monday

Worrisome news about Amy and Marinda and the current California wildfire. They were awakened by helicopters early yesterday morning, like, 2am, and discovered embers in their front yard. A while after that they were told to evacuate. They're safe, thank God, and the last they heard, their house was ok.

Jamie and I had a great evening Saturday night. We made marinara over angelhair, there was a bottle of wine (that I didn't get to drink because of migraine meds, but whatever!) and we rented movies (She's Having a Baby and Baby Mama). We ended up only watching the first one and I have to report it has held up well and it's still funny 20+ years later.

One thing about my husband that you probably didn't know--he's a seriously good cook. Yesterday he made more of his awesome belgian waffles, some really good chocolate chip banana bread for the bake sale and some OMG-Awesome fried chicken.

The girls all three had fun at their sleepovers and are back at school today but very not happy that Jamie gets the day off (Columbus Day) while they don't. This was declared Very Unfair. I'm really happy Jamie gets a day to himself, though. Yay!

We stayed up *really* late on Saturday night and then I hit the ground running at 6am on Sunday morning and spent about three hours before church working on Social Justice Committee stuff. I have to tell you, I'm pretty pleased with how the Social Justice Committee is shaping up. It's been in a bit of a shambles for a while but I've done a ton of work it's all coming together nicely. At church yesterday we had a *great* bakesale to benefit CROP Walk for Hunger. I asked the 5th-8th grade RE students to provide the baked goods, we set up a pretty cool "booth" complete with huge multi-colored banner and I decided to go with a "free will offering" instead of marking each thing because I figured we would make more $$$ that way and we totally did! We made over $300.00. We're focusing on Poverty at the moment and we're planning a film night with the youth selling concessions to raise money for their annual Habitat for Humanity trip. We just did a workshop at a district-wide youth convention where we showed a segment of the Morgan Spurlock film about living on minimum wage, 30 Days, (which is kind of, um, not controversial, but some think it's a wee bit unrealistic, but it served well here) and followed that with a discussion, a letter writing activity and the youth participated in an exercise designed to illustrate the role of privilege in our society. We're also educating on fair trade chocolate since Halloween is coming up and we're about to start working on ethical eating.

I should get two of my "big" medical test results back today or tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

Love--

Susanne

Saturday

Oh.
My Freaking
GOD.

I'm here to report that the planets have aligned and the children, all three of them, have sleepovers tonight.

We adore the children, ADORE THEM, and we're going to MISS THEM, but Jamie and I haven't had a night alone in 1.5-2 years.

Ok, I'm also waiting for Miss Jana to call me to tell me how her Wheel of Fortune audition went! Jana would be So Fun on that show, so they need to pick her!

This morning Claudia and I went with her Religious Education class to services at one of the synagogues in Indianapolis. Afterwards a very nice woman from the congregation answered our questions and those of another visitor to the church. This other visitor was taking notes. One of her questions was, "was the bread and wine in the service for communion". Oh, my F***ing DUH. But, I'm not suprised. People in the midwest, in general, are shockingly provincial. You would not even *believe* the questions I get at work over the telephone from non-parishioners.

Wednesday

Today I took off work to take Claudia to the doctor for her re-check (no more pneumonia!) and so I decided to take the rest of the day off to take her to see Barack Obama speak at the fairgrounds.

Last night I was at the hospital for another test for my migraines while Jamie took Claudia and Jordan to the Obama office in Broad Ripple to volunteer. It's farther away than the Obama office just down the street from us, but we know a staff member there who said, "Come to Broad Ripple!!". While they were there they got two preferred pass things that were supposed to ensure that we got good seats today, but no. By the time we got there the stands were completely full (there were way more people than anticipated, I think) and we ended up standing in the mud. But SO WORTH IT!!

Why not take all three kids, you might be asking? Well, usually I don't take kids out of school for anything unless they're bleeding or vomiting. You don't feel so well? Oh, well, go to school and try to make it through the day. There are even a lot of family funerals I wouldn't take them out of school for. Are you wondering if I'm talking about you? :) But Claudia has gotten the message over the years because of this that school is her work and her work is important and she has developed a fantastic work ethic.

The Weekend

Claudia is much, much better with the pneumonia. We take her in for a re-check on Wednesday. She's lobbying pretty hard to go see Barack Obama that day because you know, she has to be out of school anyway, right?!?

Halloween is coming up and the children are leaning traditional. Jordan wants to be a big pumpkin and Claudia wants to be a zombie for the second year in a row. It looks like we won't be working on a costume for Sammy this year because she won't be trick or treating (her mom is taking her to see her step-sister's army boot camp graduation).

Jordan's also leaning traditional for Christmas. She's so funny and interesting! She is very much into history, reading biographies and is crazy about family history. She wants a record player, a typewriter, a perfume atomizer and a floral scarf. She's taken to wearing scarves on her head a la Grace Kelly.

The weekend was OMG tiring.

Friday night Jamie had a religious education meeting at church so I took dinner to him (surprise! I'm a nice wife!) and then Claudia, Jordan and I had chinese take-out (Sammy was at her mom's house).

Saturday was spent shopping for wedding clothing and then going to a wedding that night. It was the first date night we've had in about a billion years so it was nice. There was no wedding cake, though, so that was a weird thing. The bride is a coworker of Jamie's and her Interesting Wedding Story (there's always at least one, isn't there?) was that her dog jumped up last weekend and broke her nose, giving her two black eyes. They did a nice job with her makeup though so it wasn't noticable.

Sunday we went to church, then a social justice committee meeting and after that Claudia and I went out in an attempt to register voters (it went horribly--don't ask) and Jamie took Jordan to a Birthday party. Sammy was at the party, too, and they had a blast, I'm told, playing laser tag.

Wednesday

1. Claudia has pneumonia. Again. For the fifth time now. I took her to the pediatrician on Monday and then we ended up in the ER until after midnight that night and she's still home from school today. Worried!!!

2. Spending the night at the hospital Friday night wasn't even as fun as I thought it was going to be. It actually wasn't any fun at all.

3. Great party on Saturday night at Adam and Melissa's. Totally worth the drive. It was really nice to see them again and we also met some interesting people.

4. Jamie and I went to the OWL (Our Whole Lives) orientation on Sunday. It's a sex ed unit they offer Unitarian children in middle school and then again in high school. It's an amazing program, the curriculum is fabulous and especially so considering the absolute crap they're taught in public schools in Indiana, but, yeah, that was an interesting experience.

5. Love this--The Great Schlep. It's to encourage Jewish Democrats to visit their grandparents in Florida and persuade them to vote Obama. And in case you're not familiar with Sarah Silverman, there's profanity.

The weekend +

Sammy and Jordan both now have blogs! They're very cute with them. If anyone wants the address to either blog, please email me. And if you pass it along to anyone else, please let me know that, too, because I'm monitoring it as closely as possible.

We have a super busy mixed bag of a weekend ahead!

Tonight I'm spending in the hospital for testing relating to my stupid migraines. Whee!! It's funny, sometimes I daydream about either having the flu or being in the hospital because I would get to loll about and no one would expect me to lift a finger. Now that I actually "get" to be in the hospital, I'm seriously bummed about it. It's going to be boring, I have to be there by myself, blurg.

Saturday evening we're going to be driving about two hours north of Indianapolis to attend a party being thrown by some of Jamie's oldest friends. I'm really looking forward to it because they have always been such nice friends to my husband and now, me, too, and they're really fun to hang out with. Plus, we get to see the adorable no-longer-a-baby, L.!

Claudia and Bobo.



On the way to the dog park. Apparently, our dog has ninja moves. When he's playing chase with another dog and the other dog is chasing him, he'll run, stop suddenly, roll over, forcing the other dog to jump over him and then our dog will run the other way. Jamie said he did this like four times.


Watching tv.

Sometimes Project Runway makes me mad.

Gotta go with a classic

Monday

Happy first day of Autumn! I would be excited if I didn't have a stupid migraine. Again. For the I don't even know how many days in a row this makes. And I can't get any migraine medicine because I've exceeded the limit according to Dr. Insurance Company. And you know, it's not like it's a pain killer subject to abuse. It's not. It affects the blood vessels in my brain. So why? I have no idea. Don't ask me to think like Dr. Company.

But hopefully by next week we'll know something about the migraines. I have an appointment at the hospital tomorrow night for testing and then they're keeping me overnight on Friday night for more testing.

So. The weekend. Sam was at her mom's house, Jordan went to the Irish Festival on Friday night with a friend and spent the night with her friend as well. Claudia went to a Quaker church service with her Sunday School class yesterday. Friday afternoon, Claudia walked Bobo with her friend, A. and they found a dog park! Jamie and Jordan took the dog there a couple of times this weekend and that dog wasn't all that interested. Jamie said he spent most of his time trying to find a way out of the fence. We all watched the Emmy's last night and have decided to give Mad Men a try, since Jana highly recommended it. (not the little girls, of course).

I read two books lately--Year of Wonders and Bridget Jones' Diary. Both very good. So happy to be reading again!

Ikeyness + the weekend + other stuff, also

1. I heard from Miss Jana and they're ok in Baton Rouge.

2. I think we got more weather off of Ike than my parents did in Austin, unfortunately. After multiple days at 100+ degrees, they were hoping for rain and it didn't come. In fact, Ginny rescheduled Bailey's birthday party for nothing! In our yard, however, trees were downed with high Ike winds.

3. Galveston and that section of the Texas coast looks awful! It's heartbreaking.

4. Houston also looks terrible and also FEMA isn't all that.

5. This weekend we organized stuff in our bedroom and the little girls' bedroom and I cooked a lot--Greek food (tiropeta, chicken, green beans, potatoes, salad) and a black plum upside down cake.

6. After church I was holding our friend, C.'s baby, and the baby started to cry and I got her to stop. I still got it! Babies love me!!

7. I seriously *Loved* this essay by Bret Anthony Johnston about memories of hurricane parties.


8. My home town showed up in Money Magazine in a list of "6 Terrific Towns on the Water" to retire to. I beg to differ with the "terrific town" part of that, as do I guess my parents who moved to Austin to retire, but the photo they ran with the article was a really bad one. Marble Falls is really beautiful and the photo doesn't do it justice.

9. The economy is sucking, but it is *so* fun to talk to Jamie about it. I want to take some classes now.

10. America's team won last night, y'all!

11. My sister, Amy, had a deep fried twinkie at the LA county fair and reports it was tasty! I could have sworn that deep fried twinkies were discussed over at Ennui Central but I can't find it.

12. I had to wear a hard hat at a construction zone today and I got serious hat hair from it.

13. Jamie's currently reading The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky and I'm reading Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks which I highly recommend. So good!!

14. Sounds like Jordan had a really fun day at school after the testing was over.

15. We're having cheese enchiladas for dinner tonight made with Rob Walsh's chili gravy recipe I found on the Homestick Texan Blog, with homemade salsa and guacamole. Because I have to make my own mexican food here!!!

Oh, No, Houston!!!

Oh, Noes!! Houston and Galveston!! Ike is the badness (and incidentally, I remain Super Pissed that they never, ever name a hurricane "Susanne".) You can follow the progress of Hurricane Not-Susanne with the Sci Guy blog on the Houston Chronicle website. Also, speaking of hurricanes, Jana has some really interesting posts about their recent experiences with Gustav over at Ragsland. And cool photos, too! Love the hurricane supplies, Jana. Next hurricane, we're coming to your house!

I love Houston so much. After kids are in college (7 years) Houston is on the short list. Houston is a great city, a great place to live and it was an important, significant place in my life. Life in Houston wasn't easy, it usually wasn't fun, and some horribly painful things happened there. But out of the bad and painful, came good as well. Houston is where a painful part of my life came to an end and I found out I still had a place in me that wasn't broken to start over with. Houston is where I found myself after having lost me almost completely (did I ever know me in the first place?). Houston is where I found my adulthood and my independence, despite the fact that I had been married for 13 years and borne two children. And Houston's also where I found Jamie.

At the time when Rita came blowing through, life for me was all about putting out fires and surviving. And the experience of running from that storm was a little nutshell of all the bad, all the scary, all the horrible that we were dealing with on a grander scale every day just then.

I feel pretty silly saying that watching the evacuation plans for this storm, Ike (such a stupid name) is upsetting to me when I'm 1000 miles away from it, but Houston Love + I still have PTS flashbacks from the Rita evacuation three years ago means that I'm feeling near tears pretty constantly right now.

So hang on, Houston! I love you ever so! And you, too, Galveston! We'll see you next summer come hell or high water.

Miscellaneous Other Stuff

1. Jordan tried out for a musical (The Sound of Music) at school this week. I'm so proud of her for doing that! I don't know when we'll know if she got a part.

2. Claudia made first chair in band! Wooo!!!

3. We had a great time at the Greek Festival last Friday night. Jordan brought a friend and they got to run around by themselves and check in via cell phone so they had a blast and even learned some Greek dance steps. We had gyros, chicken in pita with tzatziki sauce, fried calimari, saganaki, and greek salad. I need to learn how to make tiropeta because Jordan loves it a lot. In fact, that might be one of the few foods all three children will eat.

4. I'm finding Face Book to be a major time drain and sort of stressful, but it's fun so I'll keep it! Today I made Jamie flair with the heart nebula on it. I love flair and the fact that they call it flair makes me happy. Jamie and I are in competition on the number of people we have friended so that's pretty fun, too. If you don't have a face book page, get one, ok?! (but just tell me about it! No need for Jamie to know).

5. The Texas evacuation headlines last night made me teary. I swear, I still am having PTS over that.

6. Jamie's about to gear up for another round of hard core studying.

7. Jamie packed me a lunch this morning. Nice husband, eh?!?

8. Does anyone want a beagle? That crazy dog broke into our bedroom this morning and took my handbag apart. Not happy with Bobo!!!

9. My friend, Diana, invited me to go to an art show opening for someone we know tomorrow night.

10. We're thinking a lot about Jamie's mom and Grandmother. Seeing his grandfather's passing separate wife from husband was heartbreaking and I can't get it out of my mind.

Love you all,

Susanne

Funeral

We buried Jamie's grandfather today. The service was beautiful and the priest officiating knew Grandma and Grandpa and their family for years so it was especially moving.

The family met for final goodbyes at the funeral home before processed over to the church. After the funeral Mass, we processed to the cemetery where there was a graveside service and then we all met for dinner.

At the funeral home.




Aunt Leah taught the little girls how to play pool while we waited for the meal to start.


Before dinner.





Jason, Jamie and Andy.

Requiescat

Last night my grandfather died. Rest in peace, Grandpa. We'll miss you.

The Weekend

1. we went to a Super Fun party yesterday. We seriously had the best time!
2. Jamie and I are now both on Facebook.
3. The dog has finally been trained to sleep on a dog bed and to sleep in a contained area at night and when we're away!!!
4. Jamie took Jordan swimming on Saturday. It was the last day that the pool was open for the summer.
5. Trees are starting to turn.
6. PTS from all the hurricane coverage this weekend & also fretting about Jana & Co.
7. Jamie made the best waffles I've ever had on Monday. Ever. Waffle savant.
8. My hours at work are changing so now our mornings look like this: we all get up at 6, kids leave for school at 7, I leave for work at 8, Jamie leaves for work at 8:30. This means every morning we get an hour to hang out with the kids, an hour to hang out together and Jamie gets some time alone. Yay!
9. Claudia shared a movie she loves with me and Jamie on Friday night (Outbreak)
10. Jordan went to a birthday party on Saturday for one of her two BFF's.
11. Jamie got a very short haircut and looks very handsome!!!

Sammy and Jordan's Famosity

There's a national magazine, UU World, that goes to every UU member household in the U.S. We received our copy yesterday and look who is in it--Sammy and Jordan!(click photo for a larger image)