Clarification

I feel like I should clarify Risa's comment from yesterday. No, I usually don't go around telling my friend about giant phalluses. We were talking about Bhutan.

This movie won the 2010 Oscar for shorts. It was narrated by Tim Minchin, a musician/comedian that I think is hilarious, but probably would offend most people I know. Google him at your own risk.

Today I:

Drove an hour and a half to get to Ikea. Got through to Ikea with the kindness of about three random strangers. (Thanks random strangers!)
Picked up Justin from the airport.

09/13

Today I got out of bed. That was my only accomplishment.

Bring on the rain

So Monday it finally rained after 48 days of no rain, three days short of the record set in 1951. Since then my garden has died, the lawn is brown and crispy, and the temp got up over 80 degrees THREE TIMES. Every time it got hot, I got grumpy. However, Seattle has the most bi-polar weather ever. Last Friday it was 81, but on Monday it was 62. In three days, it varied nearly 20 degrees!

Today I:

Went to an evaluation meeting for Alana's classroom. I feel better about Alana's teacher.
Went to the gym. (Three days in a row! I deserve an award or something.)

Not a happy bunny

Today's title comes from this QI episode in which Van Gogh was described as "not a happy bunny." Just so you know.

Gargh. Today was kind of a huge ball of frustration. Nothing really went wrong, but nothing went right. I got up late, ran out of the house to run errands, paused for a moment at lunch and then restarted the frantic running around in the afternoon. I went to the kids's school open house and was very disappointed to learn that the awesome teacher that we had for Liam last year was NOT going to be Alana's teacher this year. This was decided today by the ECC program but no one told me. I met the new teacher, and she seems competent and friendly, but it would have been nice to have the teacher we KNOW is awesome and also to have both the kids with the same teacher this year. The weekly themes would be the same for both, I'd be able to split treats between the morning and afternoon classes, and also I donated a lot of stuff to Liam's classroom last year because I thought that she'd be Alana's teacher for two years too. I know it sounds asinine. I'm just trying hard not to sulk.

Today I:
Taught my sister-in-law some more sewing.
Went to the library to return book and to pick up some books on hold. The kids played on the computer and we read a little bit.
Came home and had the world's quickest lunch.
Took Liam to speech therapy and then frantically ran to Big Lots while he was with the therapist to get printer paper for their class supplies
Went to the kids's open house at the school
Went to the gym
Went to the grocery store (does it seem like I go to the grocery store a lot? Darn kids keep eating everything)

Currently it's 10:30 at night and I'm eating my first meal of the day not counting 5 bites of mac and cheese at lunch. After which I plan on collapsing from exhaustion.

09/10

Today I:

Got up at 5 am to take Justin to the airport. (5 AM, PEOPLE! This is a time that should not exist.)
Took Alana to speech therapy
Went to the gym (Yay! I did it!)

Laundry

Let me explain my laundering system to you. It's a process that's been refined after years, and altered with the addition of children. I gather all the clothes in the house, assess if any have been peed on (aren't children fun?), stuff them into the washer, soak them if they urine tinged and wash them normally if not. Then they are either hung up or dried in the dryer. THEN they are moved to the top of the counter until they are needed for actually wearing. Or until Justin gets tired of the piles of laundry taking over the downstairs bathroom and hauls them up to our bedroom where I trip over them every night. Rinse and repeat with interjected episodes  of panic when trying to find that one item in the heap o' laundry.

Today I:
Napped
Finished a book
Went to the grocery store
Washed and ironed my sheets (yes, I'm aware how crazy I sound especially when I don't even fold my socks. Try it once and then you'll never go back)

Gilly's birthday party

Who is Gilly you ask? Gilly is the clay snake Liam made on Tuesday. Apparently, after of months of begging for a birthday party, Liam got a little stage fright when it actually came time for his birthday. So we celebrated Gilly's instead.

Meet Gilly. He's a snake, if you can't tell.

Since this is Liam's first birthday party that he can remember, I didn't want to overload him with kids. So I invited over my brother, his wife, and their two kids, Caitlin and Dylan.  First the kids decorated shields. 

If I had thought about it beforehand, I'd probably have glued some poster board over the cardboard to make it white and easier to colour on. 

Next they ran an obstacle course. First they can to crawl through the tunnel to sneak past the wicked witch, then ride horses through the woods, catapult bean bags at the castle so the drawbridge would come down, fight their way through the evil knights and ninjas, and kill the dragon at the end for the treasure.

The full gamut.

Sneaking past the witch.

Riding the horses through the woods.

Caitlin had a little hoop skirt in her dress. HOW CUTE IS THAT?

Dylan riding, and Caitlin and Liam preparing to throw bean bags at the fortress.

The moat and draw bridge

Storming the castle

You can see the corpses of the knights in the background. They were Mylar balloons with helmets and faces drawn on them.

Attacking the dragon. We bought Liam a nice foam injected sword, but he rejected it for a stick.

If it wasn't for Dylan, we'd still be working on the pinata.

Food: teriyaki chicken, lemon garlic shrimp, strawberries, grilled pineapples, marinated tomatoes and baguettes, smoked salmon carpaccio, missing: mandu (potstickers)

Wonderful time was had by one and all, but I'm so glad that it's over. I'm now going to go die on the couch.

Today I:

Took Alana to speech therapy

Drove to TWO different Dollar Trees for balloons since one was out of helium (seriously?!?)

Came home and cooked and cooked and cooked and cooked.