It's Merlot Time

My mom watched the kids while i filled in at work today. On my way home at about 5:15pm I stopped in at Garden Fresh (a new local grocery store) to grab a few things. Now, I am rarely out in the world at that time, and just about never in the grocery store then, so I was surprised to see that every single person I encountered was buying a bottle of wine. The woman in line in front of me was buying 2 bottles of red wine, cube steaks, ice cream, and a Polish tabloid. The woman behind me was buying a bottle of white wine and 2 bananas. Behind her the guy was buying garbage bags, a jug of wine, and a 6 pack of beer. I scanned a few others on my way out- all buying wine.
Is this what the working people do on their way home?

(I'm not judging, just curious. Wouldn't it be more cost effective to buy it at Costco in bulk rather than stop every day?)

Kate & Allie

I feel like crap today.
The girls and I are sharing a case of the snot nosed, crusty eyed, coughing fit yuck. We all have our parts on the sick kids chorus- Abby sneezes and wheezes, Nora has a good phlegmy cough combined with crying and whining, I cough, moan, and sniffle, and Tim takes care of the whining. Since we are not really contagious (I think), and we had to get out of the house at some point, I decided to take the ladies to the "play room" so that I could go to pilates class at W3. So off we went....
Pilates sucked- I haven't done it in a while so I have lost some flexibility. About two thirds of the way through the class we were starting the ab work and I literally felt my back creak and decide to not unbend for the rest of the day. I hobbled through the rest of class, and the rest of the afternoon with little problem. Tim actually came home early this evening and we went for a walk after dinner. About a third of the way around the block Tim started whining about pulling the wagon so I took over and brought us home. My back hated this almost as much as it hated the 2 hours of belly dancing rehearsal that followed.
So my evening has consisted of laying on the couch moaning and sniffling and occasionally coughing. What has totally made me feel better are the 9 episodes of Kate and Allie on my Tivo.
Why do I love this show so much?
Is it because I have seen every single episode probably 11 times each? Is it because I grew up on this show and I can vividly remember sitting on the "giant napkin" (the couch in the den in the house I grew up in) watching it every Monday night on CBS? Is it their banal chit chat and canned laughter that I find so comforting? Whatever it is, it makes me sublimely happy.

The Birthday Party

My mom's birthday has always been celebrated over 2 days (August 27th and 28th) because of a mix up in her childhood. She had always celebrated on the 28th but then when she was about 15 she found her birth certificate saying that her birthday was the 27th. When she inquired about this my grandmother dismissed her, saying she was born in the middle of the night. In reality, my mom was born the morning of the 27th, however in those days they would knock you out to give birth, so she just counted the birthday as the day she finally came to.
We have always had a good laugh about this, and done our best to celebrate over the 2 days. While we had her big 60th birthday bash the weekend before last, I hosted a little birthday fete here last night. I do my best to fuss over other people's birthdays because I really believe that no matter what anyone says, they do enjoy the attention. I had invited my mom's beau, as well as her sister and my cousin. I didn't get around to calling my aunt until Sunday because I was kind of waiting to see if we were going to have power to determine what our plans were going to be. She (of course) did not feel like the invite was sincere enough so she declined. I was content to have it just be my mom the beau, the girls and I (Tim had to work, are you surprised?), but my mom told me to call my mother in law and invite her too. Oy.
So they all came over, we watched the girls play outside while dinner finished preparing itself. I prepared cocktails and about 15 seconds later my mom and my mother in law were hammered. It was so far beyond obnoxious I wanted to die. My mom just alternated between gushing and making inappropriate comments to my mother in law about how foolish she is for staying with her philandering husband. This went unnoticed because my mother in law refused to let anyone start a sentence without arguing with/talking over it. I usually can handle this, but when I was giving Nora some Benadryl from these poorly marked prefilled things and she started telling em that I was doing it wrong I just about lost it. They are these 5mL prefilled spoon things, Nora is to take 1/2 a tsp of Benadryl when needed. If there are 15mL in 3 tsps according to my conversion chart, then the spoons are 1 tsp, so she should have half. My MIL told me that I had not given her enough and kept trying to give her the rest of the prefilled spoon. She even went so far as to take it out of the trash and bring it into her room after I tucked her into bed. I was happy to have caught her before she overdosed my baby. All of my arguments and mathematical explanations of my actions were disputed. She kept telling me that I was wrong, and as she did so her voice became more and more shrill. I seriously had to bite my lip to keep myself from absolutely losing it. This was the last straw after listening to her interrupt anyone who spoke at dinner so that she could argue with them.
Where was my mom during all this? She was gushing all over her beau about the golf clubs he bought her as a birthday gift. Now, my mom has never golfed a day in her life, and has legitimately tried to do so with him, but complains about it constantly (when he isn't listening). It was sweet of him to get her such a nice gift, and she did thank him profusely, but it got to be a bit much as she continued to down Dewars and talk about how they were now committed to one another over golf clubs. Not as irritating as my MIL, but still a bit much.
So now I think we are officially done celebrating my mom's 60th birthday. We are now ramping up for a wonderful second birthday celebration for my niece. We are off to Detroit sometime this weekend, but pinning Tim down for an ETD is kind of like reasoning with a 4 year old. He is allegedly going to be home tonight so that I can get to my rehearsal for my recital on Monday, but I will believe it when I see it...

Love Thy Neighbor

There is this guy who lives next door to us and he and Tim have kind of become buddies over the 5 years we have lived here. Mike is in his 40s, and lives with his mom. Despite the fact that he is kind of a deadbeat, he is not really living there because he can't hack it at life. No, he takes care of his mom and the house he grew up in, a fairly noble undertaking, right? Kind of.
Like I said he is sort of a deadbeat. He doesn't hold a steady job, and just kind of works as a handy man here and there when he feels like it. I have heard from a neighbor who he did some work for that he is kind of lazy, and didn't do a very good job, but still he is a nice enough guy.
Before we had a snow blower he would always do the strip of sidewalk between our houses after a snow storm. He lends us tools when we need them, and always chats with Tim over the fence. For some reason this summer their "relationship" has really blossomed and now Tim and Mike spend at least one night a week drinking beer and chain smoking. Is it horrible to say that I wish it would stop?
As I said, Mike is a nice enough guy, but he is astoundingly racist. I find it beyond painful to talk to him sometimes. I just can't listen to him complain about the "Pollocks down the street", or the "colored family" around the corner, and those are the just the basic slurs he makes. Once he gets comfortable with you (as he has with us), you get all the offensive gems about the terrorists, and any other minority. I learned early on that it was not worth it to argue with him on any level. He is one of those people who will never see the error in his judgment, so I don't bother and quietly do a happy dance that he has yet to procreate and pass on his ignorance.
My biggest problem is not only the racism, it is also the fact that he over stays his welcome. He stopped by our party Friday and ended up staying until 3am, making fun of the fact that we had a generator powering our house while the rest of the neighborhood "suffered". He came back on Saturday night to drink more of our beer and continue to kind of pick on Tim about our generator. He didn't stay as late this time, but he did drop plenty of racial slurs. I finally excused myself and went and washed my mildewy towels and did the dishes since our power had come back on. He tried to come over again last night, but I was kind of bitchy and I think he got the hint.
How do you strike a balance between anonymity (did I mention that his mom is home all day and totally keeps track of our comings and goings, and he has started to as well) and community? How do I maintain a neighborly relationship with this guy and not go crazy?

Back on the Grid

After 48 hours we are back on the ComEd power grid. While we were a lot better off than the rest of our neighborhood, with the generator and all, it was still stressful. Friday's party went well despite the circumstances. Mother Nature really helped me out by making it less obvious that I had not planned very much at all for this party. My mom and mother in law came over Friday during the day to "help out" by watching the kids while I cleaned up and got ready. Why is it that whenever Tim's mom comes over to help I end up making her lunch and catering to her? Seriously, don't tell me you are here to watch the kids when you are standing out front talking on your cell and smoking. The worst is that my mom is just as bad. The two of them kept leaving the girls to their own devices while they did random (and quite unhelpful) stuff around my house. Gee Mom that nap you took really helped me out. And Kathy, thanks again for dropping that tub of salsa on the kitchen floor, as you said I needed to clean it anyway.
Once the mothers and the children left, party planning went rather well. This whole generator thing was actually quite fantastic, even though we were not using EVERYTHING electric in the house, it was nice to know that I possibly could. So at 7pm on the button Bridezilla's groom's friends started showing up. They are a nice enough bunch, our Infertile Friends (I've told you about them, right?) were here and and it is always good to see them. Our neighbor came by and joined the party, which is another blog post entirely. The lows were a broken thigh bone (dude kicked a hippity hop someone was sitting on, and is having surgery tomorrow) and Tim doing shots, but all in all it was a good time.
I spent most of Saturday feeling pretty guilty about having power when everyone else didn't, and we gave the generator a rest while we went out for lunch so that Tim could nurse his hangover. We finally got power back late last night. Our neighbor came over (again) to celebrate, and (again) stayed way too late.
Things are getting back to normal now that I can return to my routine of doing endless loads of laundry, and the kids are over tired after a weekend of having daddy home.
Hooray! The storm is over...

Party Time

So we have limited power from the gas powered generator that is humming outside our back door. I am madly preparing for tonight's festivities.
More about the storms and all later (too much to do).
I think one of ther reasons I love Tim the most is becuse his priorities are in check. The first things to get power were the sump pump (to avoid flooding), the fridge (to avoid spoiling) and the Internet.

Last Night's Blog

I blogged by candlelight last night:

The Midwest is underwater. At about 3:30 this afternoon a storm came through that took our power out, thus causing our sump pump to stop moving the downpour of rain away from our house. Since it was still daylight they girls played quietly while I checked the pump every 10 minutes and watched the water rise in the well. We watched the storm and Abby sweetly kept telling Nora not to be scared of the crashing thunder and bolts of lightening.
I called Tim at work to tell him that we had an issue, and he immediately kicked into crisis mode (this entails a whole bunch of running around spinning his wheels and yelling “We’re FUCKED!” about every 8-10 minutes). Once he finished up at work he hopped into the “shop truck” (an extremely large quad cab dealimo that is currently parked across my lawn) and headed off to Costco to buy a generator. Apparently he also browsed Costco with his dad, picking up some random things which was kind of funny, but not really as the water was pouring from the sump pump well at this point.
After some puddle jumping between bursts of storms, a dinner of peanut butter sandwiches and ‘berry fingers’ (raspberries lovingly place on the tip of each finger), and a bath by lantern light, I tucked the ladies into their warm little beds (why does air not flow through my house? Seriously, within 10 minutes of the power being off the house went from being 76 degrees to 83 and climbing-oy!).
Tim finally came home in a fit of vulgarity about traffic, the gas station (gas needed for the generator), and the storm. I helped him put this generator together and tried to stay out of the way as he fluttered around the house seeing where there was power (our circuits are kind of screwy). Once we go the sump pump working I started mopping the 2 inches of water down the drain in the basement.
While I was doing that I kept thinking of all the people who didn’t have generators and who had to watch their basements flood and just listen to the recorded message from ComEd saying that millions of people were without power, and that it could be days before it was restored in our area. Tim then came down stairs and asked me how it felt to be the only house in the neighborhood with power. I didn’t tell him that I thought it was kind of a shitty feeling. Sure, we’re lucky that nothing has been damaged and we are (so far) coming out of this with a bunch of wet towels and a new generator, but what about the lady around the corner who is alone right now because her husband is over dying on the cancer floor at Northwest Community? What about the family across the street and a few houses down with the new baby? What are they up to? Maybe they are smarter than us and have a sump pump back up.
In the wake of this flood, I am hosting a party tomorrow night here at our house. I have been grousing about this for a while (it is a couples shower for bridezilla and her death metal lovin’ groom- I only know 6 of the 20 scheduled attendees), and I am marginally unprepared, but I was kind of getting into it while I was at the grocery store today. When the power went out my house was clean and ready to go, the food was in the fridge waiting to be prepared, and I had tomorrow all mapped out to pull this thing off. Now my house is covered in sloppy foot prints and the general crap that has been shuffled around during this “crisis”. Can I cancel it if we don’t have power by noon tomorrow?


So my update is this....we have limited power with this generator, and more storms are headed our way. We got 4.1 inches of rain in a matter of 2 hours with 50+ mph wind. It looks like a war zone outside, so the girls and I are going to breakfast to check it all out.
I am still on the fence about this party. I am kind of ready to do it in the face of adversity, but I also know that I could totally cancel and no one would notice. If I thought Tim would roll with it, I would cancel all of our weekend pack up my family and run away to a hotel, but I think that I would have to do that alone (who would watch the generator).

Non Negotiable

I have reconnected with this friend of mine from college recently. We email about once a week and get together when her school schedule allows (she is in nursing school and absolutely hates it- she wanted to quit once she decided that she definitely didn't want to be a nurse, but her husband told her that she had to stick with it so that she could one day help support the family because he did not want that responsibility to fall solely on him for the rest of his life, which I can kind of see, but forcing her to do something she is sure she doesn't want to maybe isn't the best route to take, but it is not my marriage so whatever). She has a little boy who turned 1 in April. She is one of those people who had a kid because someone asked her why she didn't have any and she couldn't come up with a reason not to so she didn't refill her pill prescription and here we are.
We got together a few weeks ago and she told me how her husband really wants a lot of kids and how he has been trying to get her pregnant despite her desire to wait until she is done with school.
So she emailed me today, and of course she is pregnant, due 2 days after her first's second birthday. Her husband, who was this little stoner fuck (seriously, the only way to describe him, he is a total twerp) is taking the test to be a police officer in DeKalb, and still won't let her drop out of nursing school because the benefits are going to be so great when she is working for a hospital and he is working as a cop.
Tell me this, do people really live like this? She is beyond miserable, knocked up with a kid she doesn't really want, but her husband is over the moon so she just rolls along with it. I put up with a lot from Tim, and I compromise probably more than he does, but isn't this poor girl rolling over on what should be non-negotiable?
A career she hates and a kid she doesn't really want...would you do that for your spouse? Is it horrible that I wouldn't?

Censored

Tim and I had a lovely night out last night, that deteriorated on the car ride home. While I would love to discuss it here, I feel like I can't. Not because he reads my blog, but for other reasons.
Sometimes being a stay at home mom with a husband who works all the time gets lonely. I crave adult contact and interesting stories that don't involve poop, which is why I listen to a lot of NPR (until Abby gets pissy and demands to listen to the Marie Antoinette Soundtrack so we can dance). Sometimes I just want to tell someone about how delicious Nora is or how funny Abby is, or how irritating my mom is, and there is no one around to tell. This isolation is kind of what led me to blogging as a "hobby". All these wonderful and ridiculous and frustrating things happen in my day to day life and sometimes I need to put them somewhere, and that somewhere is here.
While I realize that I don't have quite the same readership as Perez Hilton, and I rarely check my stats (but I can guarantee that Charles reads my blog shortly after everyone of our phone conversations or rendez vous just to see if I am blogging about him) I know that I have made some little Internet friends (one of whom I referenced last night at dinner which was kind of funny), and that most of my sister's loyal readers check me out sometimes (hi Laura, happy belated birthday-Abby and I can't wait to see you next week!you too, Karen). This eases the sense of loneliness that being home all day brings, which is fantastic.
I also really like the effects of blogging. I have found that typing out posts (even if I don't post them) is somewhat therapeutic, and that once I am able to get my knee jerk reactions to things out into the vast vast Internet, I feel better and am able to deal with things a bit better. Since I do see that airing all of our dirty laundry for the entire Internet to see may not be the best idea, I keep a lot of it in the laundry basket here at home.
Tim and I have hit a rocky patch in our relationship, and I need to talk about it, but is my blog (which he doesn't read) the best place to do it? Is it possible to blog about the trials and tribulations of my life without inadvertently offending someone?

The Greatland

It is that time of year when everyone is out doing their back to school shopping, and we have gotten caught up in the frenzy. We had to go to the mall today so that I could return and exchange some stuff, so I compounded this with a trip to the "big Target" up in an area where consumerism rules, and you can find just about any franchise imaginable.
So we brave the mall and make our way into the Target Greatland, and I almost fell over. Is it me or is it totally overstimulating to have groceries, electronics, clothes, shoes, books, toys, furniture, and liquor all in one place? As soon as I walked in I started to run through all of my lists in my head, immediately they became jumbled- did I need butter or shea butter lotion? what kind of milk did we need? what was on Abby's school supply list? what are we having for dinner tonight? is there anything good on the sale rack in my size? what should we get for the birthday party Abby is going to tomorrow? is there anything here I need for the party we are having Friday? It was a nightmare. I decided to tackle it department by department, but that was no good because there is no flow to the store. Why on Earth woudl anyone think to put diapers and Drano in the same aisle? Is everything alphabetized? No, because then the band aids (shit, I knew I forgot something) would have been by the bananas, right?
The whole place was so overwhelmingly terrible that I got the bare minimum of what I needed and bailed. I think I need a nap this afternoon to recover.
We will be going to Costco and Jewel this afternoon with specific lists so as to avoid being overwhelmed.

Its Bedtime Somewhere, Right?

I am having one of those days where I don't want to be a parent. I don't have it in me to play Barbie, or Candy Land, or come up with an art project, or find a rainy day activity, or clean my house or do anything other than nothing. Currently my girls are laying on my bed, plugged into Cinderella. The little one is crabby, and could use a bath, and the big one is doing her "apple work" (we have these Styrofoam apples that she has been playing with off and on all day. It means that I don't have to play build a bear, so I am totally cool with it). Whatever they are doing I am slightly ambivalent about, which makes me feel horribly guilty, but I feel like I am coming down off a week long sugar high and waiting for the next cookie to kick in.

Last week we had the pleasure of housing my sister and my darling Clementine. Everyday was like a day at the circus. We went places and did things, even the mundane things that I do everyday, and had a ball. There was a frightening trip to the children's museum where I hip checked a kid who was mean to Abby, and poor Clementine was massively overwhelmed by the crowd and sheer excitement of it all (ok, I was overwhelmed too, and so was my mom and sister, and I think Abby might have been too...). There was an impromptu pool party where Abby learned how to ride a "water bike". There was an attempt at a Turbo Kick class at W3, and while Amanda didn't get to feel the burn of the work out she got to experience the epitome of W3 complete with sweatpants under the leotard, bad hair, fanny pack and all. There were family dinners, and jammy walks and all kinds of fun things. The best part was that there was company. Don't get me wrong, I love hanging with my girls, but it was so nice to have adult company, and extra set of hands, another kid for the girls to play with, and someone to talk to once the kids were in bed.
We also had my mom's big party this weekend which was really nice. Amanda and I both were surprised at who my mom chose as her closest friends to celebrate her milestone with, but it was her deal and she had fun. The girls were adorable, and we, yet again, did not get a good family picture of us all dressed cute. My in laws did not end up showing up to the party after the invitation snafu, or so we thought. They showed up on the wrong day and accused Tim and I of giving them the wrong information. Whatever. The party was fine, everyone had a good time, and now I can be done worrying about it.
So now it is Monday, and we are back to that late August blah which is worse than winter vacation. All the camps and classes have ended, new ones have yet to begin and school won't start for a few more weeks. I feel like we have exhausted all of our entertainment opportunities (we have been to all the parks, but it is raining so it doesn't matter, we have over done the play museum, mall playlands, and what not, and the thought of taking them to another movie makes me want to shove bamboo under my fingernails), and I really don't want to take them on a vacation by myself (Tim can't get away from work to be home by 6 let alone take a day off) so we are here, just hanging out, counting down the hours to bedtime.
Everyone has days like this, right?

Checking Out

We are lucky to have my sister and Clementine visiting us the rest of the week! While there will be many a story to be told, I don't think I will be available to tell them until my mom' s party has been cleaned up (note to self, order cake) and we are back to normal.
In our absence please check out how adorable my kids are .
Have a good week!

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

My mom is turning 60 soon, and while this will not be taking us to Mexico, we will be having a party. Her everaccomodating Beau has spear headed this project with the help of my sister and I. Earlier this summer the planning began, starting with the guest list. We kind of left it up to my mom who she wanted to celebrate with, seeing as she does not handle birthdays well. When she emailed her final cut my sister and I were kind of surprised to see that my in laws were left off the list. Now in some families this would be a normal thing, but we roll a bit differently. Tim's family is small, consisting of 2, sometimes 3 people, so adding them to the guest list is not like adding 15 people. While my sister and I thought it odd to exclude them, we respected her wishes. I did ask, but my mom said no way.
So the invitations go out, and my mother in law starts asking questions. What are you doing for your mom's birthday? Should we plan something? Why did Judy make those dresses? Rather than say "We're having a party, you're not invited" I just said nothing. I played dumb, took the invitation off my fridge, and avoided it, but that could only last so long. I finally said something to my mom about how uncomfortable it was, and after a few days she relented and told me I could invite my mother in law. Well how the hell do I do that?
Send her an invitation, right? Well, they have an RSVP by date on them and I don't want her to think that she is an after thought because to me she isn't, but she was to my mom. So I kind of eased into it and gave her a heartfelt verbal invite, giving her only the barest of details so as not to make her feel like she was an afterthought (which she was, but not mine). Seeing as she is not a total moron, my mother in law kind of figured out that this was not the spur of the moment event that I may have led her to believe. (ok, I did lead her to believe that, but what was I supposed to do?) Now her feelings are hurt, as they should be, and I feel bad for her.
She now doesn't want to come mostly because she feels like she is not wanted, but partly becasue when she asked me if my father in law was included in the invite I told her that he could only come if he wasn't a schmuck (he tends to stand in the corner looking crabby, making it obvious that he would rather be 100 other places than where he is). I think it is more the former than the latter, so what do I do?
I want to apologize to her because I genuinely do feel bad, but that would be throwing my mom under the bus, and really would she believe me?
So is it better to play along and let her feelings be hurt, and inevitably be mad at me thinking that I excluded her or tell her it was my mom's fault and cause a rift between the two of them? Which one will screw me less in the end?

Help Wanted

Why can't I find anyone to watch my kids Friday night?
Our dear friend 'Uncle Buck' is coming into town this weekend and is way excited to have a night out where he can impart his "wisdom" upon Tim and I and anyone who will listen. The plan is that I will pick him up from the airport and we will go and meet Tim and my aunt at Hackney's where we can tell family stories, laugh and drink scotch. The fatal flaw in this scenario is that I have these two amazing kids who will not last past 7:30, nor will they be able to tolerate the cigarette smoke that surrounds an outing with Uncle Buck.
Usually when Tim and I go out my mom watches the kids. If she were in town this would not be the case as she would be a part of this fete, so I would have to default to my mother in law. Since it is "boating season" she will not be available to us, only to her estranged husband (remind me to tel you about the tech support call Tim had last week) while she clutches to the shreds of her dysfunctional marriage. So then we have to go to the second string.
The useless high school girl we have sit is out of town, her friend is busy, and the 3 other potential babysitters who I call when we are in a pinch have yet to return my calls (ever). There has to be a mildly responsible teenager somewhere in suburbia who can give my kids the provided Happy Meals and make sure they get in their beds before 9pm, right? Apparently I am wrong.
I have one option that I am contemplating- asking my friend Bridezilla to do it. The fatal flaw there is that she is a nurse who works nights and it is her one night off in a string of 12 hour shifts. I feel bad asking her to do that, but I will, and she will say no, and I can't be mad because it is not like she doesn't have a valid excuse for not wanting to do it.
So I guess I have to take the kids with. Seeing as my aunt is not a ton of fun and won't stay out really late I was kind of hoping that she would take the girls home and tuck them in after dinner so that Tim and I can stay out, but she is rather "thorny" as my grandmother called her, and that is not really an option. So either Tim or I will have to fall on the sword and bail on a night out. Since I don't have it in me to listen to Tim's bullshit it will probably be me.
I guess I didn't need to spend my Saturday hung over anyway.

Overtime

I hate being married right now.

Can someone please tell me that they too have felt this way and that it will pass?
Even if it is not true.

Problem Solved

I finally had to give up and wait for Tim to get home and fix the link between the camera and the computer. I felt vindicated when Tim told me that he couldn't work iPhoto, so I felt better about not being able to make it work. My next problem is trying to find a way to have all my stuff accessible by the mac but not eating up my hard drive space. Any suggestions are welcome.
Since I was able to get all kinds of pictures off the camera, I was finally able to upload a ton to flickr . As I was loading them I realized how busy we have been lately. There are some great pictures of the Botanic Gardens, which while not totally child friendly (there is a lot of walking and not so much of that is interesting to a 4 year old) are really beautiful. There is a little toy train that goes through buildings made of natural materials that I just love. I really want to take Tim and have a picnic there one of these nights before summer is gone, but we have burnt up our babysitters as of late.
We also went to the Kohl's Children's Museum, which rocked. I didn't take a whole lot of pictures because I was with my mother in law and anytime I go anywhere with her not only do I have to pay her entrance fee, but I also have to tend to her and both of my children. The girls had a great time, and I guess that is all that matters.
There are also 3 pictures of Abby's Lemonade stand, which after giving it some thought was a really bad idea. At first my faith in humanity was restored when a guy pulled his minivan over to buy a glass, but then I got to thinking about what a bad idea the lemonade stand really is. Think about it....First I am letting my child stand on the parkway of our street where it is not impossible for a car to lose control and veer toward her trapping her underneath. There is also the child molester factor. Abby had 3 customers at her stand. One was her friend's mom, and 2 were just random guys who stopped along their way. Who is to say that one of those guys isn't some creepy guy who is going to steal my precious little entrepreneur? Call me neurotic, I have been called worse.
My favorite pictures that I have uploaded are from this series:

The little boy is my neighbor, and one of Nora's many beaus. They were totally reenacting a Whitesnake video, and little Eleanor was doing her best impersonation of Tawny Kittane (sans the cocaine, of course). I don't think Tim thinks this is as cute as I do, but whatever.
At any rate, I love my new camera. I have joked for the last year and a half that I can't get a decent picture of Nora and now they just don't stop (see the cake ones on flickr). Now if only I could upload more often.....

Paging Tech Support

We finally got around to replacing our camera last week. I was kind of bummed, I really liked my little Fuji, but I guess I showed it too much love and the LCD broke. I used it broken for quite a while, but with me vetoing the iPhone, Tim was craving a new toy so I caved. I am the first to admit that I am weird about getting new technology. Whenever it is time to upgrade my cell phone, or buy a new camera, Tim gets all crazy about features, and batteries, adn memory cards, adn all kinds of crap. All I care about is that it works exactly like the old one and does everythign I need it to do (like not take fuzzy pictures of Nora).
So Best Buy is close to JoAnn Fabric and Tim has had some time to browse the different cameras and all their features while I am picking up sewing notions and yet another yard of some fabric I have to have. So Tim found this camera, but it only came in pink at the store (unacceptable) so we had to order it online and blah blah blah blah, we got a fun new camera.
I fricking love this thing. I can wiggle it around adn it focuses for me. it takes awesome pictures and all kinds of great stuff. I am seriously enamored of this little treat!
Here is my problem...I can't get the fucking pictures off the damn thing! I got the software installed, no problem, but now I am getting this error message that is telling me that it can't find what the manual is telling me to look for. It is killing me. I even tried uninstalling the software adn reinstalling it, but that didn't work. I have tried the help menu, I have have randomly clicked on everything, I have sworn, I have done it all, so now I am blogging to bring my blood pressure down before I go back and see if I can get this handled. I am hoping to fix it before Tim gets home because I pride myself on knowign more about how to use the big remote, the Tivo, and the mac better than he does and I am hoping add the camera to that list, but I need the Geek Squad. I mean I have a college degree for chrissake! Why can't I figure this out!?
Hopefully I will be posting fabulous new pictures soon...wish me luck!

The Girlfriend

Last night I had a half hour phone conversation with Tony's girlfriend. Since he started dating her it has been made quite apparent that he is way into her and no longer into hanging out with us, which is fine seeing as that is what happens when your single friends start dating someone. I do feel bad for Tim, just because I always thought that Tony had some sort of grounding influence on Tim, and now that is somewhat lacking. Tony has always fought the good fight with me to help Tim not turn into his father, but now that it is just me the war has lost momentum and despite my efforts in vain, the transformation is almost complete. But that is a whole other story....

So I had called Tony's girlfriend yesterday to ask her if she and Tony would be interested in coming over for dinner on Sunday. Since I do this volunteer work with her, every time I see her we talk about getting together, but it never happens. So I am trying to set something up so that I can see if I like her socially so that I can decide if I want to continue volunteering with her. I also think that Tim is feeling a little left out since he has yet to meet this girl and he always thought he and Tony were "first best friends" (do you remember ranking your friends? I always feel like that is what people do when they get married and pick their bridal party).

Anyway, she and I played phone tag all day and then we finally caught up with each other. I think she is absolutely lovely, however I feel like she is one of those people who I can't truly be myself around. And worse, as I was talking to her I could just imagine how Tim would be around her and how that would kill Tony. Sometimes Tim is lacking in certain social graces, as well as the ability to not use the 'f' word and chain smoke in all social situations.

We had a great conversation, and I do like her, but is it bad to say that I was somewhat relieved when she said that they already had tentative plans for a barbecue? She mentioned something about how she was"sure we would be invited" and I wanted to point out to her that we are, in fact, only invited to limited social functions by Tony. We come out for his birthday, and we are invited to his plays, but when we go out afterward we are usually tucked in some corner of the bar and left to entertain ourselves. This doesn't bother us, mind you, I understand having different sections of your life and not being thrilled when they all come together, but I think it is weird that she doesn't see that we are so peripheral. I feel like Tony hasn't completely been himself around her either.

At any rate, I know that this is not really my problem, and it shouldn't bother be since I am, after all, just Tony's buddy's wife, but it does bother me. Once upon a time I thought that Tony and I were friends, but now things are different. Everything has to evolve. My problem is this....it makes Tony uncomfortable, I think, for her and I to interact without his supervision, and I am not completely sure that I am comfortable around her, so why am I continuing to volunteer in her office?