Queen B

Archive for the ‘The little roomies’ Category

Button

In Big time stuff, The little roomies, They're... family? on May 18, 2012 at 5:28 pm

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There’s a new addition to the family today! My girl CC went and got herself a parrotlet and named it Button.

Right now she is settling into her new surroundings, but I see her being a great pet. When we tried to put her in her cage, she flew right back out to be with CC (even though her wings were clipped just this afternoon…??). It’s a good sign, and of course the girl isn’t complaining, considering we were supposed to let the bird settle in for a few days before trying to handle it.

Should be a wild ride!

Monday again?

In Badass Ideas, Punishment for what?, The little roomies on April 23, 2012 at 7:40 pm

As grandma said, don’t wish your life away. Boy, it sure is hard sometimes, when the weekend flies on by and Monday lasts forever. The weeks seem to just crawl lately.

Most recent f-up: I thought we were supposed to go to Madison this past weekend for an Ultimate Frisbee tournament that my son’s high school team is participating in. It wasn’t until Wednesday that it finally clicked in my head that the date of the tournament and the date of the weekend WE planned to go weren’t the same. I immediately called my husband in a panic to have the hotel reservations changed (which was met with some “raised voice” response which ordinary people refer to as YELLING, and a moderate amount of swearing, and in my modest opinion, a rather accusatory line of questioning about how this happened). I understand that reservations made through Priceline are non refundable and non negotiable. Bummer. Two minutes later I got a callback (with no yelling at all) to tell me that the reservations were actually made for the correct weekend, which would have been the incorrect weekend if anyone had been listening to me in the first place. It was absent an apology. Somehow everything righted itself in a completely wack comedy of errors. Needless to say, we’re going to Madison this coming weekend and we will have a place to stay.

A motley crew

My husband has reserved two lenses for my big-girl camera for the weekend, as well! Really, he made a reservation for last weekend, but they have gracefully allowed for a date change, since he didn’t reserve them through Priceline. I haven’t seen them, but I believe he got me a zoom lens (70-200mm) and also a fish eye lens (8-15mm). I’m told the fish eye can take a 180 degree shot at 8mm. We plan on having fun playing with that one, for sure.

First though, we have to get through this week. The little one is hoping to have a new cast for the weekend, maybe below the elbow if she’s truly lucky. The boy has some ACT prep testing, a free day anticipated to be filled with golf (sounds rough, right?), and some tough Ultimate games in Naperville on Thursday . The hubby and I have to work like jerks, as usual. Plus packing. Mini dog is joining us, not like she’d be any help watching over the house anyhow.

I have to hire out for EVERYTHING!

Sleep tight

In Serious Fun, The little roomies on April 20, 2012 at 11:10 pm

I’m off to bed on a Friday night, tired as all hell. Not because I have to rise at any given time tomorrow, but because I got up so damned early this morning that i just can’t take being awake another minute.

This is probably a real mistake, as we have a double sleepover going on here. Girls upstairs and boys down. There are strict rules that the girls stay put and are not to bother, harass, or spy on the boys at any time. If I could muster the energy to provide supervision, I totally would.

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Wish us luck!!

Golden day

In Big time stuff, Serious Fun, The little roomies on April 11, 2012 at 2:02 pm

Today is my daughters golden birthday. Eleven on the 11th. Sweet.

She listened to Beatles on the way to school, I brought and ate a lunch in the cafeteria with her and her friends, she will pick a restaurant for dinner. Yes, of course there will be dessert.

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My absolute favorite girl of all time, I hope every day is golden until the end of time. She is our treasure.

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General anesthesia

In Healthy shmealthy, Punishment for what?, The little roomies on March 28, 2012 at 7:38 am

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This one’s brave. She opted for the I.V. rather than the mask. She scoffed when they asked if she was nervous. She laughed and joked about her doctor accidentally letting her slip off the bed while in the procedure.

She’s all done, and that arm looks straight as an arrow.

I can’t wait until they let us in to recovery, because I’m not nearly as strong.

Downhill slide

In Punishment for what?, The little roomies on March 26, 2012 at 6:48 pm

Everyone knew that it was too good to be true, didn’t they? There was no chance that I would spend a nice weekend with my family relaxing on the sidelines (or, rather screaming like a banshee and pacing furiously, but either way), having some fun, stress free…

Two things happened on Sunday.

First, I killed my ginger bug. I mean killed it dead. No more fizz, no more bubbles, no sign of life at all. I was not pleased. Rather than make soda after the tournament ended on Sunday, I had to dump the bug out and start over.

But first….

My littlest kid done broke herself. As I was readying to make some tea for kombucha and mourning the loss of the ginger bug, she came in holding her arm funny. I knew immediately, and within the hour it was confirmed. She was scraped up and bloodied and also broken in her arm and a wee little toe. The urgent care center sent us home with some Tylenol- Codein prescription and a CD containing her images for the orthopedic we had to arrange on Monday. I spent the evening wiping tears and administering what seemed to be a foul tasting but useless medication, fetching water, changing out cold packs, and helping a very restless and unhappy pumpkin up and down from her couch-bed. I was also designated Muppet Show pauser for bathroom breaks.

Today we found out that the break will have to be reset on Wednesday while under general anesthesia.  I don’t know if I’m relieved or upset.  On the one hand, I know it’s excruciating to set this bone in particular, because I watched them do it to my son when he was around 7 years old and actually said aloud that I never want to have to go through that again.  It was horrific!  On the other hand, my poor little baby has a broken arm for another two nights and a day.

Today is day #1 of spring break.

Ultimate

In Nothing to it but to do it, Serious Fun, The little roomies on March 24, 2012 at 2:45 pm

 

This is new for me. This ENTIRE weekend will be spent at an Ultimate Frisbee tournament. Haven’t heard of the sport? Well, neither had I until my son started practicing like a fiend to be on the high school JV team. Just as you would expect, it’s a cold, wet spring sport. Fast and high energy for the players, exciting to watch and slightly confusing for this newbie spectator.

At least one other spectator is spending her time searching for 4 leaf clover. I won’t mention any names to protect the innocent.

Did I mention we had to rise at 5:00am for this?

Happy spring break!

 

The experiment

In Healthy shmealthy, The little roomies on March 16, 2012 at 10:17 pm

I had read (probably via Pinterest, or one of the many blogs I follow) that drinking a glass of 100% grape juice daily can stave off the flu.

Well, my son left his Ultimate Frisbee practice early today feeling achy and miserable and fevered. Just the fact that he left early from practice is enough to guarantee it’s a true illness, but when he asked for me to bring the Advil with me, I knew it meant trouble.

As bad as he felt, I still had to stop at Jewel to get the grape juice. We’re giving it a try, hoping that whatever his bug is won’t get the rest of the family and/or will lessen the severity for A. This is a problem, because the boy has never been a juice drinker. He choked it down after giving me a suspicious look at the suggestion. I will say for him that he certainly is good about following my directions, even if he would much rather not. There is no better medicine than March madness, I’m told. I’ll let you know if we avoid contamination and the experiment is a success.

Since I’m not yet sick (fingers crossed) and I don’t need the medicine that is college basketball, I’m free to use the internets whilst enjoying the sweet, sweet tunes of Brett Dennen now that he’s finally been loaded onto my iPhone. I spent a lot of time yesterday synching my phone, updating the software, and finally putting a whole heapload of songs on it. I had this irrational fear of putting a ton of music on it until now, which I have gotten over to the tune of around 5500 songs. It makes me supremely happy. I just love having all of my favorite music at my fingertips, and it makes the 6:00am start time at work a lot less lonely.

Also, I have a new motto starting today: Keep it simple, stupid. This would be on account of my recent habit of getting ahead of myself and making things somewhat more difficult.

I’m working on it.  I’m not really stupid.

Mom, ignore this post

In The little roomies, Who comes up with this stuff? on February 22, 2012 at 2:45 pm

I had every intention of writing a post yesterday. Swear. Then I worked late, and had to race directly to the school for volunteering and the rest of the day just accelerated out of my control. I probably could have put something together while the television was on last night, but by then I just didn’t have the energy to combat all the distractions. So I watched the Parenthood (I’ve just recently started watching… I saw the first episode and totally wasn’t into it, and then picked it up recently and wished I’d been watching since the beginning. Duh.)

Anyhow, there’s a few things.

I had another frustrating interaction with the Volkswagen dealer service shop on Monday when I brought my car in. Although we called and made an appointment on Saturday and indicated we needed a loaner (and received confirmation that one would be available), they didn’t have one. So I had to sit for 1/2 hour waiting for Enterprise to come pick me up so that VW could rent me a vehicle. You didn’t think I left empty-handed, did you? Or worse… wait for them to work on my car? HA! That’s laughable. I was still completely over the top pissed, though, because a loaner takes about two minutes to get into but renting a car ended up taking over an hour total, even if it didn’t cost me anything. First I had to wait for them to create a PO for payment, then I waited for Enterprise to pick me up, then I had to wait for the porter to shuttle me to Enterprise when they didn’t show up! It was literally across the damned street! I swear if I had known that I would’ve walked over myself and saved 1/2 hour. Enterprise put me in an HHR. The girl at Enterprise kept telling me things like “the only thing you’re responsible for is the HHR” and “when you leave the HHR,” and I finally had to ask her what the hell an HHR is. Of course I was standing right next to it. I didn’t like it, by the way. The windows are really small, so it ends up being really dark in the car and there are a TON of blind spots. Plus, it smelled funny. As if someone had smoked in it and tried to cover it up with cinnamon scented Febreeze or something. Ick. I immediately preset all the radio buttons to decent music stations. I didn’t change them back to the crap they were set to before (AM radio and jazz… did I mention that jazz makes me super tense?), and I didn’t put any gas in it before I took it back. I’m such a rebel. It took so long to get the car and then drive home that VW called and said my car was ready right after I walked in the door which didn’t help my mood at all. Apparently the software update they did last week had caused an electrical charge to build up in the tachometer and they needed to release that charge and that was all. I’m not sure if I buy it or not, but that’s their story. Today my driver’s side window wouldn’t go down for about ten seconds (which I now refer to as THE TEN SECONDS OF FURY). It did eventually go down, so I’m not going to bother taking it in, mostly because I don’t have the patience to deal with them on another intermittent problem that they’ll dismiss so soon, but I have very little faith in my vehicle’s electrical system at the moment.

My Kombucha Round Two is doing awesome! That thin and questionable scoby I had created in the last batch has changed its mind and floated back up to the top of the brew! It’s like a Kombucha miracle or something! I have been better about leaving this batch alone, as well. I have it wrapped up in its little darkness dish towel and I have only peeked in TWO TIMES since the 17th. That isn’t bad, right? I guess that isn’t as many days as I thought. Well, whatever, things are looking good and that’s all that matters.

And finally… (mom seriously if you’re reading this even though you were told not to… see title… please look away now because you’re not gonna like it.)

CC got herself a new little friend.

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It truly is a little friend, no matter how large it looks in that photo.  It measures about six inches long MAYBE.  I think that my girl smiled bigger than that when we allowed her to buy it, even though we’ve been on a strict no-pet policy here for the last year or so.  It is a common Garter snake, her second.  The first was wild caught (actually caught in the dead of winter inside of a business, it would have died if she hadn’t taken it), but this one was purchased at a pet store.  She has been on the hunt for another Garter since the last one perished, and I can’t argue that it was probably the best pet she ever had; no noise, no smell, completely docile.

Rules are made to be broken, right?

Sorry to anyone who doesn’t appreciate snakes showing up unexpectedly in their inbox.

*****Edited to add:  My mom totally read this post.  I know, because she never listens.  Also, she sent me a text that said “nice snake.” *****

In a nutshell

In Serious Fun, The little roomies, Who comes up with this stuff? on February 18, 2012 at 1:31 pm

Welp…. the mother yeast was transferred last night after we went to see HUGO in 3D (more on that later). Surprisingly, although it was thin, it was one solid culture all the way across the top of the container. Yes, I did a happy dance when I pulled it out and it didn’t fall apart. I’m unsure if I should be dancing so much, though, because it sank in the new tea rather than floating as I’d hoped. In my extensive reading this morning I have found that the batch will now form a new scoby on the top of the jar again. Oh the pain of waiting. I hope this takes less time now that there is a thin but more substantial starter scoby in this batch.

I did not even taste test the first batch to see how it tasted, because I was scared. It was only started with a dime sized blob from a commercial bottle of GT’s, for crying out loud.

Also, I’ve now scared myself in all my reading that I shouldn’t use the glass bottles I had planned for bottling, lest I blow off a hand or put my eye out. Great. I’m not sure how I am going to resolve that one, because there is no way I’m going to be reusing BPA loaded plastic soda bottles as suggested. Besides which, we don’t drink soda so I wouldn’t even have a source! Ugh. First world problems are the WORST!

So we went to see Hugo in 3D last night as a special treat for the family to celebrate that both my husband and I got paid this week. Personally I get more excited about the prospect of buying fruit at the grocery (because we were literally down to 1/2 of an orange on Friday and I was the lucky one chosen to take it to work for breakfast – since I get off at 11 I don’t eat lunch at work, yo), but whatever!! A movie it is! I drove. Swiftly, I might add. My kids make awesome DJs in the back seat with their iPod plugged into the AUX through the radio.

*have I mentioned how much I love my little zippy Volkswagen? I do, I do.*

Anyhow, I have beef with somebody. I’m not sure who, maybe it’s the movie theatre, maybe the industry itself, maybe the advertisers (probably the advertisers). In a clip prior to the film, there was a little something (like a cartoon-y ad of some sort) about having a good night being in the theatre with friends and a friend says the boy two seats down thinks she’s HOT which turns a good night into a great night. Really? Why o’ why do all girls now have to be HOT? It’s my newest obsessive pet peeve. That expression, to me, implies something sexual in nature (if I must be honest), rather than someone’s appearance. Am I wrong? I don’t like it, is what I’m saying. I want my girl to be beautiful, pretty, exotic looking, cute, adorable or lovely. But HOT? I swear I’ll tell her to kick that boy between the legs. Just sayin’. And yes, I’ve taught my son better than to say that about a gal.

So, that movie. Visually stunning. That boy playing Hugo had some of the bluest eyes if ever there were. Were they digitally enhanced? I don’t know, maybe. They certainly popped, though. For the record I have to say that 3D gives me a headache, but the 3D in this movie really worked to its advantage. I know it’s been out for quite a while now, but I recommend the movie to anyone who hasn’t yet seen it. My family liked it, even though I found it to be sad. I don’t want to give anything away, but I could relate to the boy in a way that my husband and children couldn’t and it did bring tears to my eyes during and after the movie. But I think too much, so there’s that.

Future weekend plans include watching the neighbor throw yard debris over the property line onto my property (can already check that one off the list ~ thank you asshole), laundry, doing my nails (because I paint them now and they are getting too long for fast typing at work… does anyone else have one hand that grows faster than the other?), cleaning, basement work including moving in a bunch of drywall, and a nephew birthday party this evening. More basement work to follow on Sunday.

Please tell me someone has more interesting plans than that?

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