TV Worlds Colliding!!!

So, I'm watching a Law and Order rerun yesterday (L&A is one of my guilty pleasures. Get it? Guilty? Law and Ord...... Yeah. I know. 10 thousand comedians out of work......) Anyway.... so I'm watching the rerun yesterday, and the main bad dude was supposedly a TV chef. They show him on the "set" of his show - and by george, it was Rachael Ray's set!!!

I'm not sure exactly how long good ole Rachael has been doing her 30 minute meals on FoodTV, or when the episode of L&A was filmed. But I'm positive it was her set.

I have a feeling that some of y'all are reading patiently waiting for the "big news". Well, ::cough::, that was kind of it.


I never claimed to be terribly hip or cool, thankyouverymuch. Just amused by off-the-wall stuff, sometimes!

GaGa - I hate to break this to you.....

It's not that he WANTS to like watermelon, he just can't help it!!!
::wink wink!::

For Jmk

I just found the list! (I had forgotten about some of these already, honey!)

Pootar
Dance in your boogie pants
Toolicious
Coos Drop
Can I wanna ___?
Can I talk to you?
May. I. Be. Escuuused pease?
No Way Jose
Boonana
Of Course!
Hmm hmmm hmmm.....
Poosketti
I toogot.
I so saaaaa.
Ta ta!
Pacause
Sip Sops
Siup (Phillip) (Thanks for those two Robert!)
Sosia
Bahbee NoNo
4-Eee Wheel
Kittnen
Lellow

::sniff sniff::
She's such a big girl now, Daddy!

A little humor for today

From Miss Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey:
"She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance. A misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind, is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing any thing, should conceal it as well as she can."

::cough, sputter, cough::

Miss Austen just throws that stuff in there. It's priceless.

Lost as a goose.

This is a shot of the kids playing "attack the Daddy" before bathtime a few nights ago. We just had the most wonderful past few days! Jmk had Wednesday off, of course, and then he took Thursday and Friday off also. We didn't actually go anywhere, and since we had a lot of gracious rain over the past week, the Zoo was inside the house quite a bit.

And even though you'd think this would be a recipe for disaster, or at least serious cabin fever, we had the best time. A lot of playing, a little bit of shopping, a ton of laughing, too much eating (groan!), and just some wonderful together time.

And I feel so lost this morning, because Jmk had to go back to work! Ugh. Back to reality.
I miss my lobster!

Minor addenda to yesterday's post

The first time you use the Microplane, *just* take off calluses. Don't try to work on regular dry skin. Save that for your foot "sanders". (for lack of a better term) I did get down too far on one of my big toes. It's fine now, but it was pretty sensitive for an evening.

Just a note, in case anyone is thinking about getting one!

Foot Envy

Do you have foot envy? Do you look at flip-flop'd females and see smooth, callous-free feet and wish that yours could look like that? Do you have small children that makes the idea of a pedicure seem more like work than fun? Does your budget prohibit pedicures?

Even more important - is the skin on your feet so rough and dry and callused that you get large cracks in your toes or heels or pads of your feet? Cracks that actually make walking uncomfortable at times?

Thanks to an online gift certificate that my sister gave me for my birthday, and a chance google search for something unrelated to this product, I came across this product. Oh my goodness!!!

Y'all - this WORKS. Seriously. The first time I tried it, it removed the calluses from my feet. Gone. It doesn't hurt to use the file, and my feet didn't hurt when it was all finished. My feet are in such a shape that it will take a few more of days of moisturizing and baby'ing to have them looking post-pedicure. But they will!!!

I am impressed - really impressed. If you have this problem with your feet, and can spare the money, go get yourself one. You will really love it. I'm not saying that you must go thru this Amazon vendor, although I had no problems with them. And, I don't know anything more about the various Microplane products. The only one I know about is the one I got, and that's the link I posted.

But, I actually don't have any thick, yellowy, dry skin on my tootsies right now! I'm just thrilled. It works!!!

Twinkies!

From Robert and Megan's wedding.... actually after it was all finished and we were waiting for the shuttle to take us back to our cars after the reception. Beautiful SueSue and her Poodle - twinkies forever!

How Much???

I get Allure magazine each month - it's the least political of the fashion magazines out there. It allows me to see what the other makeup and skin care companies are offering, without having to weed thru TOO much political rhetoric. (There's always a little bit, but it's more easily avoidable).

Quite frankly, most of what I look at are the ads. (Mary Kay even has an ad in this month's Allure!) But, I also take cursory glances at the pages of "high fashion" that are available. I was bowled over by a page of thong sandles - the shoes themselves were cute enough. But the PRICES. Oh, for the sake of pete. Here is an example of how much some of these designer shoes go for. Some of them are as much as $1000. For a pair of thong sandles. I kid you not.

Crazy, huh? Now, listen, I admit that I've never had on a pair of designer shoes. And I will readily admit that they probably fit much differently and feel better than one of my pairs of $15 Target shoes. The quality of materials is in a different league. Whatever.

But you know what? $400? Please. lol...... Never gonna happen my friend. Not even close.

I'm gonna go slip on my comfy little brown suede flip-flops that I just got at Tarjay for $6.99 on sale. They're cute. And I won't get heartburn when Tooter picks one up and uses it for strength training without my knowledge.

Of Blueberries and Bug Spray

Saturday morning, Poodle and I went to MooMoo's house to pick her blueberry bushes. They were ready, ready to be picked, and I had to wait until Jmk could watch Tooter.

So, she and I donned our jeans, boots, and bug spray (chiggers, you know), and set off for MooMoo and GaGa's house. Poodle brought a little bucket, and I had a trusty plastic grocery bag to hold our loot. I gave Poodle the rundown on which berries to pick, and which to leave, and we got to work.

I'm usually the one with the camera firmly planted in my hand. So I was a bit irritated with myself that I didn't have it with me. It was an image that I'm sure MooMoo had in her mind as she planted those bushes eons ago. A little granddaughter in a pink tank top, with her long blond hair pulled into a low ponytail, picking berries and putting them into her little white bucket. Her cheeks flushed after 5 minutes in the heat. It was really sweet.

Telling me "uh oh, Mommy. I got some white ones. Can you put them back on the tree for me?"

What was most noticeable to me, though, was what happened a bit later. First, Poodle is a normal 3 year old whose brain filter hasn't been fully engaged. Her communication is often nothing more than her trains of thought that travel directly from her brain to her mouth. And, she has no off switch, so she is always talking. Always.

So, after about 30 minutes of berry picking, Poodle is quiet. I look down at her, and for 2 solid minutes, my little chatterbox is quiet. I realize that she is actually lost in her thoughts for that brief but precious time. It was something that I don't see (or hear) very often. I wanted to ask her what she was thinking about, but didn't want to interrupt this quiet, sweet time.

Picking berries at my childhood home with my child. I don't want to forget that feeling.

Thoughts on Eczema

This is a post that is really for those people who do a google search for "ways to help babies with eczema" or "coping with eczema in toddlers" and things of that nature. My eczema baby is 19 months old. He still deals with full body breakouts.
(All you wonderful friends and family who check in with us on a regular basis - don't feel compelled to read thru it all. It's pretty boring reading for most folks, I'm sure!)

Here are some things that we have discovered:
*No matter how you feel about medicine, the baby is going to need some. Work it thru your mind, because he needs it.
*You probably aren't going to be able to definitively determine the cause(s) of eczema. You may get close, though, so if you think something is a problem, then assume it is. It will never hurt to eliminate things.
*Sometimes cold weather helps, sometimes it hurts. Sometimes sunshine helps, sometimes it causes flareups. Sometimes warm weather helps, sometimes it aggravates everything.
*Try everything. Even if it sounds crazy. Something odd may just work. Unless you know it is harmful, of course.
*For example - as a side result of a breakout just before he developed a cold, I discovered that sometimes Tooter would sometimes get relief from a dose of baby motrin. By relief, I mean that the dose seemed to help his other medicines get to work faster than normal. I'm not prescribing it to anyone. Just forwarding what helps Tooter. At times. (See the next note).
*Don't think that just because something works now that it always will. Sometimes the skin just gets acclimated to one thing. Switch up lotions, bath washes, creams, etc. Unless you know something is crucial for maintenance. Otherwise, don't get frustrated when after a week of good skin, he has a breakout again. It wasn't necessarily something you did or didn't do.
*Don't think that just because something didn't work before that it won't work later. A lotion that used to irritate Tooter will now help him. (except in the worst of a breakout).
*When you're told to wash sheets in hot water and dry them in a hot dryer, do just that. Not warm water and a warm dryer. Hot. Hot, hot, hot. If you don't want to put your 2472 thread count sheets through that abuse, then maybe you need to get some regular sheets for now.
*"Whatever it takes" is a valid reason. In controlling head-to-toe eczema, you just do whatever it takes.
*We have learned that the more consistent Tooter's life is, the better his skin does. When we try to "go and do" too much, he suffers.
*You may notice breakouts before your little one gets sick. The skin seems to respond to a virus just before his other symptoms hit.
*You can't keep them in a bubble. I mean, you CAN. But who wants to do that to a child who doesn't HAVE to have it in order to survive?
*Prayer is not only important, but crucial.
*Don't ever think that you are being silly for being worried about it. It's not a serious disease like cancer. However, it is very disruptive to a child if they have a bad case of it. It is worth your concern.
*Don't feel guilty if you dread having to "grease up" your uncooperative, wiggly, fussy child. Don't feel guilty if you skip a greasing from time to time, because of the difficulty of it. But, try not to skip too many. Because the scratching in the middle of the night won't be worth it.
*You're not the only parent who spends all day with your hair looking extremely unwashed because your hands always have vaseline on them.
*You DO have hope that your child will outgrow it, if they have developed it this early.
*As irrational as it sounds, the pain from breaking the skin by scratching is actually better than the extreme itch of eczema. That's why they will scratch in the middle of the night. It's why they can not get back to sleep on their own. This skin disorder is tough, especially when it's happening to a little person who can't tell you what he needs.
*You're not alone, and you aren't going to go crazy. Not completely, anyway. :-)
*DO be grateful that your baby doesn't have something more serious. Being grateful for your blessings really will help you deal with the constancy of the problem.
*It's okay to get frustrated because you can't "fix it". The best you will be able to do for your little one is do what you can to try to prevent breakouts and then deal with the breakouts that WILL happen anyway. At least till they outgrow it.
*Don't worry when you feel a teeny bit sad after picking up a baby with clear, soft skin. Just remember the times between breakouts when YOUR baby's skin feels like that too!
*If your little one doesn't outgrow it, then take heart. He will be able to help with his own skin care as he gets older. And that might very well make things better.

That's all I can think of for now. I hope this helped someone out there!

Ears. Check.

Tooter and I just got back from an appointment with an ENT in town. Tooter, unfortunately, was the victim of an over-anxious mommy. He is 19 months now, and has really no vocabulary to speak of. There is "dah dah" for Jmk, and "dye dye" for bye bye. Recently he has started "mum mum" when he's eating, which I think is supposed to be yummy. But, still no "ma ma" for me. He has quit saying "ca ca" for cracker. And he hasn't learned any new words in months now. (Or, at least, that's what it seems to me).

So, of course, instead of being laid back about it, I worried that something might be wrong. A speech therapist friend who lives in the neighborhood suggested that I just verify that his ears/hearing check out okay.

So, that's what we did this morning. And, praise the Lord, they did check out fine! (Deep down, I knew his hearing was fine. I just needed someone with "MD" behind his signature to tell me that). Tooter is just going to be a "late talker". He's a boy, he's the 2nd child, he has an older sibling who talks all the time for him. Those are the things that the doctor (who was very nice!) said were part of the delayed verbal development. The doctor was remarkably unconcerned, so he's seen this a bunch, I suppose. He said to give him a few more months to catch up. And, when he does, his progress will occur quite rapidly. All things that I have heard before. Again - I just needed that medical verification for some reason.

In a convoluted way, a part of me almost wanted there to be fluid in his ears or some such thing to explain his delay. Which makes NO sense - because had there been an actual problem to affect his hearing, that problem would have required surgery to correct it.

And, now I see that in actual print, I'm so grateful that Tooter is fine. And, like my friend told me, Einstein was reported to have not "talked" until he was three. Hey - you gotta hang on to stuff like that!

If you detect over-excitement in my voice when I report new words, you'll understand why now!

In other news, Mom called while we were out, and she and Dad were in Budapest, and were having dinner. They'll be cruising the Danube tomorrow, which sounds lovely! She says Budapest is a pretty place - I'm looking forward to the stories!

Walking down Memory Lane

I'm sitting here working on 2006's photo album, and am seeing all these pictures of my babies from JUST a year ago. Wow - I'm a bit overwhelmed at how much changes in a year. These tiny people aren't that tiny any more.
And, I'm sure that when I get to work on 2007's album, I'm going to be equally amazed at all of those changes.

I watched Poodle swim today, during her lesson, and she's just growing up so fast. I wish I had a rewind and playback button somewhere around my ear so that I could see some of those past days again. Wouldn't that be fun?!?

Finally! Pictures are up!

I have FINALLY gotten April and May picture links up on the website. I realize that June is almost over, but whadayagonnado?

You HAVE to see this movie

If you don't want to buy it, rent it like we did. You just HAVE to see it. You will laugh. You will cry. But mostly, you are going to be praising God. And when was the last time you did THAT at the end of a movie?

This film is fantastic!!!

We'll buy it. It's really not on a level that the kids will understand the content right now. But in a few years, they should be able to. This is one of those movies that I won't mind them watching over and over.

Really - you will love, love, love this movie. It is fantastic. Rent it pronto!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID!!!

We love you Uncle David!!! And hope that you have a wonderful day, knowing that you are being thought of warmly. BIG HUG!!!

Strength and Tenacity

Two of the reasons that this country even exists in the first place. The first most important reason, I think, is that the Lord guided those settlers here, who then established this country as a God-fearing nation. He has blessed us for a long time. Most of the time it has been in spite of ourselves. Or, as I've heard our preacher rightfully say, maybe the Lord has blessed us for the sake of those first men and women who led this country into organized existence.

At any rate, this wonderful story about the USS New York is a quick and interesting read on Snopes. It can give you the tingles!

Prayer Request and Observation

My folks, along with a good sized group of fellow travelers, are on their way "across the pond" to take an EF "In Mozart's Footsteps" tour of Prague, Austria, and Hungary. If you feel so led, please pray for their safe travel and for their safe visit while in that part of the world. I know they enjoy these trips, but it's hard not to worry a bit until they return home safely.

My observation:
Please know that I do realize this will be interesting to practically no one but me. Having said that, however, I give myself absolution to share. Today, as I was listening to a message that my youngest brother left for me last week on my voice mail, (I had saved it to hear it a few more times - I'm a dork), there was something in his voice that reminded me of our dad's voice. David doesn't sound like Dad in general, but right at first, his voice resembled Dad's voice. It was kinda cool.

See. I told you it really wasn't that interesting of an observation. :-)

Not from the mouth of Charles Schulz......

....despite what a popular email forward likes to claim. BUT, I still like the sentiment of it, and thought I'd post it. Without attributing it to Mr. Schulz. Even though I'm sure he would agree with it.
Btw - thank you so much to all my wonderful family who made me feel so special last week. (see #4 of the 2nd quiz). Y'all made it a wonderful birthday. Even if I did turn 30 for the umpteenth time. ha!!!


1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America title.
4. Name ten people who have won either the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.
6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.


How did you do?

The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners .

Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with .



Easier?


The lesson: The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are the ones that care .


"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It 's already tomorrow in Australia " (Charles Schulz - he *did* sort of say this via a "Peanuts" comic.)

What to say........

We're busy right now. We've had a lot going on at church lately, lots at home, busy busy busy. And we have a busy weekend up ahead with Robert and Megan's wedding. (Poodle is the flower girl, and Jmk is a groomsman). The kids are noticeably tired and I'm pooped. I don't feel like doing anything, but EVERYthing needs doing.

Know the feeling?

So, I think about the blog - and even though there is lots and lots to say and share, I can't think of a SINGLE thing to post on! Isn't it crazy? I'm sure I think of things during the day..... stuff that, at the very least, the grandparents would want to see and hear. But if I do, it's when I can't get to the computer. And by the time I CAN get to the computer, I have absolutely nothing to say.

So, today, I thought I'd just say that. I have nothing to say! :-) Now. Aren't you glad you checked in with the Zoo today?

::ahem::