Pinewood Derby 2009

Peter's Cub Scout Pack did their Pinewood Derby this year; for those of you who've never experienced it, the boys build wooden cars and race them. The cars come as "kits", which are actually just a block of wood, 4 wheels and axles. What the boy does with the block of wood is up to him.

Theorectically, the boys are supposed to do all the work themselves; most of them do. In our family, the design of the cars has therefore progressed over the years, as Peter got more dexterity, and as he got older and was allowed access to power tools! For several years he made standard race cars, but never did particularly well; he was usually in the middle of the pack speed-wise, which was not enough to get him to district.

But starting last year, he decided to bag speed and go for originality. This years car? A replica of the Heisman Tropy:

Most Original 2009

Peter and I worked on it some at David's house -- David has a table saw and a router! GOOD stuff, and Peter was way psyched that he got to use power tools.

I, of course, thought it looked great, but I am a Mom, after all. Apparently, though, it really did: Peter took first place in the Most Original category, and will compete in the District Pinewood Derby.

More LOL

Just cause I can

And cause Dusty's so funny

Most ridiculously redundant thing I've heard today

"It was re-ejected out"

Hmmmmm....

Scouting Peter!

Peter had his penultimate Cub Scout Pack Meeting tonight; what started way back in the summer before 1st Grade is now nearly over.

Tonight was the night that Peter and three other den-mates got their Arrows of Light. The Arrow of Light is the highest award that a Cub Scout can receive; it's also the only award that can be worn on a Boy Scout uniform.

The Pack did a very nice ceremony; they had a slide show of the boys' five years in the pack; and, yes, I got teary-eyed! The arrows the boys were given were made by a guy named John Blackfeather, who's an Ocaneechee chief; they're REALLY cool.

Here's a picture of Peter with his Arrow:

Peter and the arrow

In addition to getting the Arrow of Light, Peter also got the Super Achiever award. As a Webelos Scout, the boys can earn pins for doing certain activities. There are 20 pins in all; some are needed for the Webelos badge and the Arrow of Light. If you earn all 20, you are a Super Achiever! Very few kids, though, get all 20. In our Pack, which is 10 years old, there have been 3 boys who did them all; last night Peter became the 4th.

Since the SuperAchiever patch is not a rank of advancement, there are many different styles available. Peter's Dad was keeping WHICH patch Peter was getting a secret till the Pack Meeting; turns out he picked the Heavy Shoulder Award; the pins that the boys earnd are all worn on the right shoulder; by the time they get all twenty, their shoulders sag from all the weight!

It was a good night; Peter (and his parents) were all pretty much beaming all night long!

Ouch! I'm Old!

David and I took Peter, Grace and Geoff (David's youngest) rock climbing this weekend (indoor, of course) at Triangle Rock Club.

It was tons of fun. None of us were certified belayers, so we could only free climb (up to about 12 or 15 feet), or use the automatic belayers.

Peter and Geoff had been before with their respetive Scout groups, Grace had never been, though she's wanted to for quite some time. All three of the kids had a really good time, but I have to say that Grace absolutely rocked. There were times when we'd hook her up to the auto-belayer, look away for a moment, then turn back and she'd be all the way at the top of the wall! She was even decent on the harder of the two auto-belayers (where the holds are further apart, and the wall angles out a bit); and by decent, of course, I mean got further up the wall than her mother did!

The only bad part came this morning, when I got out of bed, and OMG I'm sore! Mainly my triceps and quads, though I feel it a bit in my ankles (and, to be honest, my butt) too.

And, yes, it is a little depressing to realize that never, ever, in my wildest dreams, will I be as buff (or as limber) as the 20-something women who were scaling the walls yesterday!

What a week

I'm done now. Ready for this one to be over with.

This has been the week from HAIL (spoken with the appropriate Southern Televangical Voice)!

OK, so it was a long weekend. Great. Theoretically a good thing; time to veg, time to relax...

But none of the plans I had for the weekend wound up working out. Not a big deal; it wound up being a good weekend, but still. It wasn't the relaxing time I'd expected.

Still, I had Monday off. My kids got dropped off around 8, we actually did some housework, then David and his crew came over midday to hang out and have dinner.

It was at dinner that things began to fall apart. We'd ordered what seemed to be an appropriate amount of food for 6 people: a large pizza, two large salads, two orders of wings (10 wings in each). Plus we had cheesecake for dessert. But somehow, it all went.....FAST. No one went hungry, but I think everyone would've eaten more (or at least eaten less salad!) if it had been there.

THEN, the UNC women played abominably, and got absolutely stomped by UConn. Granted, UConn is the #1 team in the country... But Carolina is #2. We should NOT have been beaten by 30 (THIRTY) points.

I'd had the Maytag guy out to look at my dryer Monday. My dryer hadn't been heating (spinning, yes. heating, no); he said it was an electrical issue, so I scheduled an electrician's visit for Tuesday morning. Unfortunately, when I woke up Tuesday morning there were 3 inches of snow on my deck, and it was still falling.

So, I worked from home Tuesday, the kids got to play in the snow, but the electrician couldn't come. And Peter's Arrow of Light ceremony for Cub Scouts was cancelled.

Then Wednesday, still no school, still WFH, still no electrician. BUT, the roads were clear(ish) so other activities were on. David and I had dinner with my kids and Kathy, then the kids went off with Kathy to get the scoop (Kathy is travelling for Chinese New Year, so Peter is taking care of her kitties and needed to learn the drill), then were picked up by their Dad to go to Peter's basketball game. I went home to grab my car and headed off to my handbell group.

But hit a patch of black ice on the way. Spun one way, corrected, OK, OVER-corrected, spun the ohter way, jumped up on the sidewalk, and finally came to rest, on the sidewalk, facing back the way I came. The good news is there was no damage to me (other than soreness) or the car. But I was scared out of my ever loving mind!

AND Peter's basketball team lost.

Today the kids were back at school, BUT I still had to stay home to meet the electrician. Plus I had to take my car to the shop, just to get it checked out (plus it needed an oil change and inspection). There was no damage from my fun last night, BUT I do need two new tires and an engine belt, to the tune of $500.

Then the electricians got here. Turns out my breaker panel (yeah, that thing in one's garage where all the wires come in....) was fried. Literally. The breaker for the dryer was actually crumbling, it'd been damaged so badly. So, yeah, I avoided a wiring fire, but now have to replace my breaker panel, to the tune of about $800.

So thats, oh, $1300 I wasn't planning on spending this month. Or next month, or the next six months, to be very honest.

The good news is UNC beat Clemson last night, preserving the home win streak (54-0). Hopefully that'll be an omen for my life for a bit!

And, tomorrow's Friday, and weekends are always good....

But dang, I'm pretty much done with this week!

Oh, you mean FOLLOW the directions

Tonight I had what I thought was a pretty good dinner menu, all things considered: My kids were staying with me (snow days, icy roads, etc, so their Dad and I did a reworking of this weekand swapped nights), I hadn't been to the store, etc. I decided we'd have Brats, a random veggie, and for a new trick, potato dumplings.

Now, the recipe for potato dumplings was pretty simple, and it allowed me to use my new favorite kitchen gadget, a potato ricer (Christmas present from A). Ricers are COOL! They're like the old Playdough Barber Shop kits that I coveted as a kid but never got. (Har humph).

The only tricky part of the recipe was that the dumplings wanted to be chilled before being cooked. Now, this was a spur of the minute dinner, and I didn't really have time to chill things. Plus, I've cooked enough to know that recipes are more like....guidelines. So I ignored that bit of the instructions, and popped the dumplings into the water.

And, when the rest of the dinner was done and I went to get the dumplings, I had a lovely pot of gruel!

Um, yeah. Apparently they DO mean follow all the directions!

College Game Day!

Peter and I went to the taping of ESPN's College Game Day today, broadcast LIVE from the Smith Center! It was tons of fun; much more than I was expecting.

I was assuming it would be very crowded, and that we would not be able to see or be seen. I was was pleasantly surprised, though. We got there at 8:25 ish, the doors opened at 8:30, but there was virtually no one in line, so we were still able to get pretty much center court, about 4 rows back. Peter's Dad even saw us on TV (though his Aunt Kathy didn't; she wanted him to take his shirt off to be easier to spot...).

Here are some pictures:

Peter waiting in line for College Game Day

Peter inside the Smith Center at College Game Day

"Duke Boy" (Jay Bilas) being a good sport and posing with the Tarheel faithful

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I feel stupid...

And apparently it's contagious.

I did something incredibly stupid yesterday. I was waiting to pick my kids up from choir, and noticed that their director had put up the spring schedule. It was the one time I wished I still used a PDA, because I didn't have anything to write the dates down on.

Then it ocurred to me: I could use my cell phone to text the dates to my work email address (yes, I have myself in my contact list, for just this reason), then I'd have them today to put into my Outlook calendar (and, yes, I do realize that I'm only steps away from this). So I popped into Contacts, selected myself, and opted for Send a New Text Message, popped in the dates, and sent it off, poof, into the ether.

And almost immediately got a text message. With the dates. On my phone...

(facepalm)

So, I was telling that story at lunch today, and, after laughing hysterically, the two people I was with (who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent) shared some of their facepalm moments.

Person 1 shared that one day recently, (while safely stopped at a red light) she was texting a friend. The light turned, she put the phone down, and then thought to herself, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if there were a device that could send messages like text messages, but you could just speak into???"

And then realized that there is...a phone!

Person 2 shared that once while browsing in a book store, and wanting more books than she could reasonably buy, she thought, "Gee, I wish there were a place where you could just BORROW the books for awhile to read!"

Yep. And realized that it's the library!

So at least I'm not alone!
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When dogs lose their minds

Not that they have particularly huge minds to lose! (Sorry, canine-lovers).

I've been dog-sitting Tucker, David's dog. Now, Tucker is a sweetheart of a dog. I really, really like him, as dogs go.

But he's a dog. And a young dog. And a young dog that was not well-taken care of for the first 10 months of his life -- not starved, or anything, but chained to a stake, and certainly not taught much about manners or impulse control.

So it's been an interesting week.

Now, the good news is having a dog has forced me to get my lazy self out of bed in the morning and go for walks. Also at night before going to bed. But, we're in the midst of a serious cold snap (15 degrees this morning when I woke up), and for some reason Tucker's excitement and energy levels do some serious spiking as the temperature drops. Not sure why; he's a mutt, true, but shows no signs of having any Husky, Malamute, or any other cold-region dog in him. Plus, he's VERY short-haired, so you'd think he'd be cold. But whatever.

So, anyway, I get up at 5:stinking:30 this morning, throw on my walking clothes, go downstairs, and that's when the trouble starts.

First, I can't find my ear-band (WONDERFUL fleece thing I bought years ago, beccause I hate both hats and cold ears). Not a big deal usually, but at 15 degrees, yeah, gets more important. I look, and look, and look, with Tucker bouncing around me doing the hurry-up-I-gotta-PEE dance. Finally, I gave up and found one of Grace's hats in the hall clost that I jammed on my head.

Then, as I'm trying to shut the door behind me, Tucker TAKES OFF, trying to get across the street to see a friend. Now, he does this frequently, though he's usually bolting for the grass to do his business. But, yes, I kinda expect it, and I keep his leash shorter as I'm leaving the house for just that reason. But he was excited this morning (he loves other doggies), and dang-near pulled me down the steps! (Dang near decapitated himself, as well, for the record).

So, I manage to get my door shut, walk Tucker into the grass, then he sits and looks at me. Um, peeing? Remember that???? He tries to go see his buddy. Nope, Mean Old Meg won't let him (I am NOT in the mood for canine shenanigans). So he comes back and looks at me. I look right back. FINALLY the light bulb goes off (or the urge kicks in), and he pees.

So, off we go -- he's gotten much better about pulling on his leash, but apparently the cold froze all his brain synapses today, and he was back to all his old bad habits: Pulling on the leash, running around my legs, etc. Plus, he'd peed but he wouldn't, uh, do anything else. And it was COLD. I did NOT want to be out in the cold, getting dragged along by a dog who's supposed to be doing what I want, in 15 degrees of coldness.

But, we persevered. Eventually Tuck got over himself, stopped pulling on me, did the rest of his business, and we made it back home.

Where he developed a sudden, irrational fear of hardwood floors.

Which wouldn't be so bad, except since my entry way and kitchen both have hardwoods, it makes it kind of hard to get him in the house, get him out of the house, or feed him.

It was actually kinda funny: he'd walk right up to the edge of the hardwoods, then stop and wimper. I'd call him, and he'd wag his tail, and get all excited....but not step onto the hardwoods.

Finally I dragged him into the kitchen so that Dusty wouldn't eat his breakfast. Once on, he was fine, but he got off the floor as quickly as possible, and didn't want to get back on it. Oh, and yeah, that also makes it hard for him to follow me upstairs, since he has to cross the dreaded hardwoods to get to the stairs!

So, yeah, no idea what's going through his little doggie brain -- he's never had a problem with them before at my house, and in fact HIS house has hardwoods in the entire downstairs.

Dunno. But I do know this: David is back in town, and I'm taking a break from Tucker-walking!!!!

Oh, just grow up!

I've been on an incredible Juvie Fantasy kick lately; since Thanksgiving I've read: The 4 Twilight books, Ender's Game (yes, as a geek it's unconscionable that I'd never read it, even though Orson Scott Card is a total nutcase), Wee Free Men (part of the Terry Pratchett Discworld series), Redwall, and A Wrinkle in Time. Oh, and I'm currently reading Eragon.

Now, part of this is because Peter has been assigned a project on Fantasy Worlds in school (yeah, yeah, not THOSE fantasy worlds, thank-you-very-much. These are 5th graders, so let's please keep our minds out of the gutter). He was assigned The Fellowship of the Ring, Wee Free Men, and Redwall, then also had to pick a 4th book to read (he picked Eragon). So, yeah, Juvie Fantasy has certainly been around my house for awhile.

And, to be honest, that was always a genre I liked, even back when I was the Juvie. One of my favorite series when I was a kid was Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series. And, yes, I was (am) a total Harry Potter geek, and I like the Bartemeus books, and I loved Watership Down....

I just couldn't make the jump to adult fantasy (with a few exceptions, and again, no comments from the peanut gallery please). I've read a couple of Star Wars books that I like, and I like Bradbury, and I read Snow Crash. And, yes, I suppose LOTR is actually a grown-up book, as are the Shanara books, which I also like.

But if I'm going for a genre (rather than a specific book), and I want a grown up book, I'm much more likely to go for a mystery than sci-fi or fantasy.

I'm not entirely sure what this says about me, but at the moment I'm having too much fun to worry about it overmuch!

We're all cracked

David and his family were over for dinner last night; David is travelling this week, which means I'm dog sitting, so they had to bring Tucker and all his stuff over. It made for a reasonably loud, raucous, crazy evening: 7 people, 5 of them kids; one XBox; two computers; multiple cell phones (with their text messages); a TV; two cats and a dog.

Now, all of the kids are pretty OCD and anal retentive in their own little ways (yeah, and the grownups too -- the kids have to get it from SOMEWHERE). It makes for amusing situations at times, when there may be as many as 4 or 5 separate conversations at dinner, each led by a different child who is absolutely convinced that his or her story is of the utmost importance.

So last night after dinner, David and I were playing Rummy with Kirsten (his eldest) while Peter was watching the Steelers game. Now, sports happens to be what brings out Peter's compulsive genes more than anything; one of the best gifts he ever got was a magnetic board that allows him to track, week by week, the various standings of all NFL teams, with a separate section for the playoffs. He was very excited last night when Pittsburgh won, and came running into the kitchen all breathless, and announced "Pittsburgh WON!!!! Oh, and I've already updated my board!"

Amused at my son ('cause, yeah, we were all wondering when he was going to update his board), I looked at David and (rhetorically and jokingly) asked, "Does anal retentive have a hyphen?"

At which point Kirsten looked up and said, "No, it doesn't, but I really think it should!"




(NOTE: Yes, I went to dictionary.com to confirm that anal retentive, indeed, does NOT have a hyphen before actually typing it in this post!)
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Yay A!

Adrianne and I are both totally addicted to the Cake Wrecks website. Love it.

I've never yet gotten the nerve up to send in a potential wreck, but Adrianne has.

And today, she made Cake Wrecks!!!

To be fair, it wasn't a wreck; every Sunday Jen does Sunday Sweets where she shows examples of truly beautiful cakes; of late she's taken to asking her Wreckporters to send in pictures of truly beautiful cakes that adhere to a certain them. The pic A sent in was for a Fairies and Castles theme.

What fun! Perhaps I'll actually have to TAKE a picture of the various Harris Teeter wrecks I see, rather than just thinking about it....

Ignorence is bliss...

And by that, of course, I mean that it's reasonably blissfull when your kids (and their friends) are still ignorant of certain.....terms.

Santa brought an XBox to our house for Christmas, and David gave me Rockband 2. My kids, somewhat to my surprise, really get a kick out of Rockband. Today Peter had a friend over, and he, too, got into Rockband.

I played with them for awhile, then needed to go bake cookies, so they continued on without me. One of the songs they picked to play was Roxanne by The Police.

I was a little concerned, but figured I could always explain some of the lyrics by saying, "Well, he really likes this girl and he doesn't want her flirting with other guys." Technically true...

But then they got to the "You don't have to put on the red light" bit. Uh, yeah, I might have a tougher time explaining that one...

Luckily, one of them said, "I don't have any idea what that means! It makes no sense!!" and the other said, "Yeah, me either!!!" (both giggling hysterically).

WHEW!

They're just like kids....

The Boys, that is.

This morning when I came out of my room after getting ready, Jack and Dusty were wrestling together on the landing. Much chewing, rolling, jumping, play-growling was involved.

As soon as I came out and spoke (Yes, I talk to cats, and yes, my intelligence goes down accordingly. Today I said, "Oh, are you two playing together???"), they immediately stopped wrestling, began grooming each other, and looked at me with wide-eyed, innocent expressions.

"Us? We weren't doing anything!"

Yeah, right.

Ouch!

I took a sick day today because Grace was sick (mild fever, headache, tummy ache, seems to be better now, but we'll check the temp in the morning).

Anyway, you'd think I'd've gotten a lot done. But mainly I played games and watched TV all day, until suddenly it was 5:30 and I had to get Peter to choir. And then, of course, I sat around some MORE because I couldn't think of what I wanted for dinner, till suddenly it was time to pick Peter UP from choir, and still no dinner made.

When Grace and I got out of the car to pick up Peter, suddenly I could smell pancakes, so after a quick trip to the store to get some supplies, I came home and made blueberry pancakes.

The pancakes were yummy, but there are times when I'm amazed that I've actually lived on my own, cooking for myself and others at least part of the time, for about 20 years now. I periodically seem to lack some basic cooking safety knowledge.

Like, if you're wiping out a pan that has hot oil in it, and some hot oil drips from the paper towel onto your hand, DON'T grab the paper towel, sodden with burning hot oil, with your other hand.

Dang, oil burns!

My Goodness, this woman could take over the world!

I've blogged before about one of my favorite sites: Cake Wrecks. Great site, very funny, and full of cautionary photos for those of us who get a little creative with their kids' birthday cakes. It's written by a woman named Jen (no last name), who is, without a doubt, one of the funniest people I've ever read.

And, apparently, has enough of a following she could take over the WORLD (please read in your best Brain impersonation).

Yesterday she posted about being a finalist for a 2008 Weblog Award for Best Food Blog. At the time, 1,520 total votes had been cast, and Jen was in second place with 383.

Today, when I voted? 12,116 votes cast, and Jen's in first place with 10,172 votes.

Dang! Barak should've hired THIS woman to run his campaign!

(BTW: go here and vote for Jen!)

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That was fast...

Peter's pet guinea pig died over the weekend; he was very sad the day it happened, but between taking some time to veg over video games and blogging about it (I was so proud!), he bounced back fairly quickly.

And is now lobbying for a lizard.

Yep, a slimy (ok, so I know they're not really), scaly reptile.

I thought a rodent in the kitchen was bad! Do I really want a reptile ANYWHERE in my house? I'm just not sure....

Initially he said he wanted a gecko, I think a leopard gecko specifically. Not sure (I have to admit I'm not good on the various families, genuses and species of the Reptile class. Or order. Or Phylla, or whatever the heck it is. (Aside: I do, however, remember that the order of nomenclature for, uh, everything I guess is Kingdom, Phylla, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. Funny what sticks with you from 7th grade science.....)

Anyway, so he initially was talking small lizards, but then threw out an iguana, which:

• Sounds too much like guano (yuck!)
• Reminds me of Mexican Radio by Wall of Voodoo (I wish I was in Tiajuana....), and Peter would get mad if I talked about barbecuing his pet
• I'm thinking is just WAY to big a reptile to .... exist, probably. Certainly to share a house with.

So, I dunno. I've told him to find out the answers to various questions I have: how long do they live, how hard is it to regulate their temperature (cold blooded little beasts), how prone to carrying disease are they, how often do their cages need cleaning.... We'll see after that.

But seriously, reptiles? He's such a boy!

My Rock-n-Roll kids...

I got Rockband 2 for Christmas: TONS of fun, incidentally.

Theoretically, it was for me and my kids. I have to admit, I kinda thought that was silly at first: my kids are 8 and 10; the 10 year old has, to date, shown NO signs of wanting to live a rock-n-roll kinda life, even vicariously. The 8 year old would LOVE to live a RnR live, vicariously or really, but doesn't quite have the hand-eye coordination for RB (plus she isn't tall enough to play drums -- her feet don't reach the bass pedal!).

But, surprisingly, they LOVE it! And as a result, I'm loving it even more than I figured I would!

When we play as a band, Peter plays guitar, I play drums, and Grace sings. Quite frankly, G's singing needs work, but I think that's as much a result of not having a clue what the songs/words are as anything (not much Hannah Montana or Jo-Bros on RB). Peter's guitar work is not bad. Between the three of us, we can typically get 3 or 4 stars.

So, as a result of this, my son now knows who the Beastie Boys are (and that I hate them), who Elvis Costello is (and that I love him), sings along to Duran Duran and Paramore, and (finally) understands that the song is Kids in America (not the Future) and it's by Kim Wilde, not the Jonas Brothers!

Oh, yeah, life is good.....

OK, OK, I get it!

My little boy is growing up. Yeah, I know, he has been for quite some time now. But sometimes I have a hard time remembering. Luckily, Peter is very good at gently reminding me!

Today in church, during the sermon there was a point where the minister was talking about young men serving in the armed forces, etc. I have to admit that I have a pretty visceral reaction to such talk, as the mother of a son (who will be draft-age in 8 years -- and you wonder why I voted Obama????), so without even thinking, I moved my arm from where it had been, along the back of the pew behind Peter, to his shoulder, and gave him a bit of a hug.

And got a shrug. And then a look! OK, so it was a little TOO public a PDA for my boy, I could cope. So I put my arm back on the back of the pew.

And within a few minutes, Peter began pushing his head back against my arm!

OK, OK!!!!! Fine then!

My arm remained in my lap the rest of the service!

(Incidentally, the title of the sermon was "Signs, Signs, Everywhere are signs", which I found very amusing given Peter's non-verbal cues that I was being TOO Mom-ish!)

2008 wrap-up, and a resolution

DISCLAIMER: As I write this, my laptop is actually a knee-top, because my lap is taken up with a cat. Dusty has picked this time to be snuggly. But, yeah, I'm a softy for a purring cat, so I'm OK with it. But my arms may be two inches longer by the time I'm done!

So, yes, it occurs to me (and has been pointedly pointed out by some) that my blogging habits have left something to be desired in the last quarter of 2008. Yep, I know, I'm sorry, life got in the way.

So, my resolution for 2009 is to be better. When I (re)started my blog in 2007 I occasionally had to make myself blog when I realized I'd gone a few days without; eventually it became a habit, but obviously I've dropped off a bit. So I will now resolve to blog with more frequency. I don't promise to hit one post per day, but I WILL try to not let weeks go by!

So, I figured a good way to start the blog rolling (ooh, like log-rolling! I LOVE lumberjacks!) is to do a quick 2008 recap, before starting in on 2009.

So, 2008. Some of the highlights I remember are:

The broken arms! Peter had, I think 4 arm injuries; eventually we realized that we could save at least one trip to the ortho-pod by putting his arm in a brace for a few days; still, I believe he had a grand total of 4 casts.

The eyes! Peter had an odd case of blurry vision in February; it disappeared pretty quickly, and was never entirely diagnosed; could've been stress, could've been migranes. Not to be outdone, Grace had her own bout with blurry vision right before Christmas. Luckily, both of them checked out fine, and in fact have (according to the ophthamologist) incredibly healthy eyes.

School stuff: As usual, both kids had good ends to last year (2nd and 4th grades), and started off with a bang this year. It's hard to believe that I've got a 5th and 3rd grader, and that Peter will be finishing elementary school this spring! Though they claim not to, they both enjoy school, which certainly makes life easier.

Alaska! My whole family took a cruise to Alaska to celebrate my Dad's 75th birthday. He didn't actually turn 75 till November, but as cruising to Alaska is a little chilly even in August, we did it early! The cruise was spectacular; my only complaint would've been that my kids didn't quite understand how once-in-a-lifetime this trip was; until they got back to school that is, and all their teachers made a big deal about it! Peter's epiphany came when his teacher was going through landforms, and having everyone (including herself) raise their hands if they'd seen or been to that land form. Peter was the only one in his class who'd seen a glacier; THEN he realized how lucky he was!

The Boys: Yep, Jack and Dusty have taken up semi-permanent residence with Aunty Meggie; the kids love having them, and poor Corduroy was looking very peakey with the boys around. They're very sweet....except when they're driving one INSANE!

Dazzle: Poor Dazzle made it through 2008, but died soon into 2009. He was a sweet piggie, and we'll miss him.

Time wasters galore: Let's see, in addition to blogging, I added World of Warcraft, Facebook, and Rockband to the list of incredible timewasters! Not that I need anything to waste my time....

To Shin Do: Grace started martial arts this year; so far she's gotten her white and yellow belts, and has a black stripe on the end of her yellow belt.

No football! For the first time in 3 years, Peter did NOT play fall football. We always liked his games, but I have to admit that it's nice to have my Saturdays more free.....

Basketball!!!! Tyler Hansborough staying for his senior year, Tyler Hansborough passing Phil Ford's record...we won't talk about that Kansas game, though....

Football!!! How long has it been since I was happy about football!!!! But Carolina did OK this year, and even went to a bowl game. Peter and I went to that, rather than a Bobcats game, and had a blast....till UNC lost, of course...

Personal stuff: So, yes, 2008 was the year I became officially divorced. Life is going remarkably well, all things considered. My ex and I have managed to remain (imo) more than just cordial; we parent well together, and our kids are either the world's best liars, or they're adjusting remarkably well. It's not neccessarily a path I reccommend, but having come out the other side (or at least around a bend), I have to say we're all doing OK.

More personal stuff: Yep, I'm dating someone, for anyone who doesn't know or hasn't figured out the subtle hints left in blog-land. We've been dating since last March, and I must say he's a big part of whatever good humor I have! (and my kids, of course, but they always have been!)

Christmas: This was, I think, one of the best Christmases in a long time, partially because of David (aforementioned significant other), but primarily because, for the first time in a long time, I felt very much in control (though I may not have always acted like it!), and able to let go of what couldn't be done. It wasn't, by any means, a perfect "Norman Rockwell" Christmas; my rolled cookies got walked on and broken by The Boys, my tree didn't get up as early as I'd like. But it was fun, and crazy (add a dog to The Boys and see what happens!), and I spent a lot of time with people who mean the world to me: my kids, David, my family. Good stuff.

And now it's 2009. There's my recap, and I've now done two blogposts this year, and it's only the 3rd. Or since this one was so long, can it count as two? :-)

Happy New Year!

In Memorium

Dazzle Cohen
2004-2009

We've had a death in our animal family. Dazzle, Peter's guinea pig, passed away peacefully in his sleep last night. He had not been eating as much the past few days, but hadn't seemed in any distress, so we're assuming he just reached the end of his time.

Peter was very sad, but we had a little ceremony, and buried Dazzle under some cedar trees in the backyard. We marked the grave with rocks, and Peter left a carrot there. He also made a memorial picture of Dazzle on the computer, and hung it on his bedroom door. Both seemed to help.

We'll miss Dazzle; he was a good piggie.