Skull Cap

I took a shower this morning...but I forgot to wash my hair. I don't know how something like that could happen, and it's so bizarre to me. I didn't even stop to wonder, "Hmmm, did I wash my hair?" I just shut off the water and went about my morning as usual.

Now, my hair feels like it's clinging to my scalp. To the untrained eye, it appears clean and even styled, although I can see (and feel!) the difference. As a matter of fact, I could grab a brush right now and in a matter of seconds create a 'wet-look' style. Pork chop-pork chop, greasy-greasy.

I've spent all morning fighting the urge to wash my hair, and managed to hold-off doing so through the school drop-offs, unloading recycling, grocery shopping and putting away, sitting out in the back yard having a snack (mmmm, sun-baked greasy hair!), and lunch.

Now, however, it's naptime; grease relief here I come.

It's Gotta Be The Shoes

E3 has a pair of red shoes, which she's dubbed her "Kindergarten Shoes". They will no longer fit her when she's old enough to attend school, but she loves wearing them all the time now and when I ask her to get shoes on so we can leave the house she'll exclaim in a 'light bulb moment' kind of way, "I'll get my Kindergarten shoes!"

Both E1 and E2 had a turn wearing these shoes, but only wore them on occassion; not nearly as avidly as E3 sports them. Everywhere we go, people compliment her red shoes and comment that they're just like Dorothy's. E3 looks at them quizzically, and then demurely replies, "They're my Kindergarten shoes." And giggles.

Tuesday, our school district held their annual birth to five developmental screenings and I scheduled E3 for 3pm, just before school dismissal. E2's teacher scheduled me to help in the Kindergarten classroom from 2-3pm the same day. I had a plan figured out: my brother-in-law Eric would still come over to hang out with E3 and F during naptime as usual, and would then walk them up to school just before 3pm. This was going to be tricky, because F is usually cranky when he awakes and there was a good chance that Eric would have to wake him from his nap. BUT! F's Dad Nelson would be around and could come by just before 3 to take F and then Eric would only have to walk E3. Smashing!

The night before the screenings, I spoke with Mrs R to let her know that I would need to leave the classroom a bit early for the screening appointment and thus, would not be able to read the class a story. And then...she invited E3 to come along while I helped in the classroom so we could go directly to our appointment. I didn't mention it to E3 in case she didn't wake from her nap before I had to leave, but she was up and ready 20 minutes before I left. And she was pumped.

She was a bit shy at first, but quickly settled into her role as a helper, handing out work mats and dinosaur counters to the kids in our group (E2 included), and listening quietly as they took turns telling us subtraction stories with their dinosaurs (many perished in the volcanoes). She also enjoyed following along to a Franklin audio book, and playing with toy dinosaurs before it was time for us to leave for our appointment.

I relayed the news of the classroom invite to my Mom via email last night. Her reply:

"Did she wear her Kindergarten shoes?"

Of course!

Twin Towers

Wouldn't it be cool if IMDB would start an entry for the World Trade Center and list every movie/tv show that shows the twin towers in the skyline, every one that 'takes place' in the WTC, etc.?

I think it would.

Happy Birthday

Dad, reader of directions, coach, fun guy, Matt Lauer impersonater.

Happy Birthday to my favorite husband.

Love,
N

Haul Out The Holly

Spoken by E3 at breakfast today: "I'm ready for the next Christmas, Mom."

What's A Hokie?

Rob's cousin married a V.T. alum, who passed this to us today.

Photo Brief

This is a little snippet of Hawaii that I get to see each day. I bought it from Kauai Suncatchers at a flea market on Kauai, while my mother-in-law generously let both E1 and E2 choose a small one to give to their teachers as a gift. What I love about it is that it has real sand on it's beach, and the clever depiction of the Hawaiian islands on the surf board.

The pinata became a flower, although a freakish one. The leaf I added wasn't quite to scale, and overall it looked a bit like a water-squirting lapel flower that a clown might wear. A really big clown. It was a bit soft and I thought it could have used another layer of paper mache, but at least it didn't take forever for the kids to crack.

Chris' is a lovely place to dine, just off of South Hampton in St. Louis - I think it's considered to be part of The Hill. We've eaten there many times, before Cardinal's games, before Bradley Childbirth classes, and sometimes just because. The girls love it because of the breakfast food on the menu. We stopped in last night after picking Rob up from work and before we headed to over to visit my father-in-law (he's doing well and came home today).

Ride A Cowboy

The girls and I were all excited to see the return of Drew Lachey as the surprise guest on Dancing with the stars tonight, reprising his role as Cheryl Burke's partner during Big and Rich's performance of Save A Horse, Ride a Cowboy. Very slick trick.

They're also thrilled with the announcement of Samantha Harris' pregnancy. How many people get to announce that on national tv?

People who will not be dancing after tonight:

~ Leeza Gibbons and Tony Dovolani- Actually, Tony will probably be back for other performances. However, I agree with the judges that Leeza was too stiff and never just let herself go to Tony's professional instruction.

~ My Father-in-law - he's having knee replacement surgery tomorrow.

It Hasn't All Turned To Mush

Thinking back to the last job I had before this Mom gig, I recalled how I was able to make some changes to the organization's website by checking out other blogs. A website called webmonkey offered a lot of advice, including using the 'view source' option to see the nuts and bolts of the page you were currently viewing. Doing that, I was able to figure out how to make a link open in a new window like Dana has here.

This coding (change the { and } to <>):
{a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festus,_Missouri" target="new">rural Festus
Should get you a link like this:
rural Festus

Why on Earth the Blogger linking button doesn't do that instead is beyond me.

Thanks to Dana, for unknowingly becoming my example. Go tell her HI - she just moved Into The City and got a welcome note on Mayor Slay's website.

Technicalities

Can someone pass me a crib sheet with the correct coding to make a link open in a new window? Back in the day when MomsOnline was happenin', I had a post-it cheat sheet with the coding - at least coding that worked on message boards. Even if I still had it I don't know if it would also work on a blog.

Also, where can I find out how to use my site meter to it's fullest advantage - like if I want to find out if the person from New Jersey who searched "Rolves fire" and found my site might possibly be Fuco (Hi, Fuco, if that's you!)? Maybe I need a different site meter?

Now I have to go back to the mundane stuff - like cleaning and filling Easter eggs. Maybe I'll nap first and make Eric, Janet, and Christine fill the eggs tonight.

I'm so smart!

Will The Jumbled Thoughts Ever End?

My brain is on permanent scatter mode - still - and it's keeping me from posting lest I reveal how schizo I am these days.

Last night, as I found an old black and white movie on tv, turned the volume low, and set the sleep timer, I wondered when I had changed from a person who had trouble sleeping with tv/radio noise to someone who prefers that noise when falling asleep. I decided that the act of setting the timer is much less abrupt than turning the tv off and the lights out. It gives me time to doze off before actually committing to sleep RIGHT NOW. What does that mean?

At any rate, I didn't get that chance to doze before I heard footsteps in the hall, the bathroom closet door open and close, and dresser drawers open and close - indicators of a night time accident. I ordered sleeping, confused children around while making dry sleep spaces available, and tossing bedsheets into the washer all the while thankful that I no longer start a load of towels before bedtime as a way of getting a 'head start' on the next day's laundry. If you ever have to deal with a night time accident, or worse, night time vomit, you learn to keep that washer free.

It's cold - gloves and a hat cold - when just yesterday it was in the high 70's as I mowed the lawn and wondered if I'd already sweated off the effects of my SPF 15 moisturizer.

The grade school that E1 & E2 attend is having hat day today. If they pay a dollar, they can wear a hat to school. The money raised is going to Rob's uncle's family, who recently had a house fire. It's such a nice gesture, and there have been so many of those since the fire that Uncle L's family has passed on some of the donated goods to charity.

I was not surprised to see Shandi leave Dancing with the Stars last night. What was with the judges Monday night though? I thought they were a bit harsh to the first four couples or so, but then they suddenly mellowed. The girls really enjoyed the Star Wars themed dance by Joey and Kym. How many more ways can they find to reiterate that the professional dancers are the ones responsible for the choreography? I was impressed when I learned that last season - as well as learning that their costumes are created new each week - but this season they seem to want to drive that point home. I get it. They can stop now.

We've managed to pawn all three girls off to sleepovers tonight, so Rob and I are going to attempt to get dinner and massages, or maybe a movie. Depends on the availability at the massage school. This time, I'll be sure not to drink any alcohol before dinner - or at least not reveal it to the massage therapist. Hmmm, I don't recall if I blogged about that at the time... the therapist was hesitant to proceed with the massage since I'd filled out the pre-massage form with the information that I'd had a rum drink before dinner...two and a half hours, two glasses of water, and one meal earlier. Rob had had a couple of beers, but his massage therapist didn't blink and eye at the information. My massage therapist had to go consult a 'higher up' and wound up shorting me about 20 minutes of my massage. I'm still a bit bitter. So, if I enjoy a beverage tonight it will be our little secret, right internets?

Opening Day

Our Cardinals are not doing so well tonight. We've consumed our usual opening day meal: hot dogs and nachos. Maybe we didn't consume enough beer.

Rob's uncle L's house burned down Wednesday afternoon after a car started on fire in their garage. Everyone is safe, and most of the photos albums escaped with only some slight smoke/water damage. Uncle L is a brother to my Father-in-law, so also a son of recently-passed Great-Grandma. He lived within a few steps of Great-Grandma on the family farm, so they've taken up residence in Grandma's house (convenient), but all of the utilities and such were just recently (in some cases that very day) terminated (inconvenient). All things considered though, the conveniences outweigh the inconveniences. Plus, now they can design their house around their now-grown family, making sure they have ample dining space for holidays.

Rob installed some cork flooring at his parent's house Thursday and Friday evening, and I went out with some girlfriends Friday night. Saturday afternoon I took E1 & E2 to see a high school production of High School Musical, which was really cute. Saturday night we headed over to the farm to help consume the large amount of bbq that the volunteer fire dept had brought by. Three days out and Uncle L already had his first party. Rock on.

We've been having some beautiful weather lately, and it looks like it's going to turn colder this weekend. Why couldn't it wait until after Easter? Or until fall?

I've got one layer on the Easter Pinata (festive, eh?), and need to get another on tomorrow. I still haven't decided if it's going to be a flower or a sun. We needed a change from eggs and bunnies of previous years though.

Of course, we're still trying to settle out how our Sunday will shake down as we usually have two places to go and some people in the family forget what it's like to drag kids all around on a holiday and get all snarky when we're not there for the meal or late for the egg hunt. Good times.

We've got a busy week staring us down, but it begins with Dancing with the Stars, and there will be a couple of Cardinal games mixed in, so it should all balance in the end.