Date Night

Made it through another week. I’m beat, but that’s nothing new. Robert and I dumped the kids with my parents and went to Marshall to get my ring resized. The jeweler took off about 1/4 of a ring size, which seems miniscule, but my ring’s not flopsing around anymore so I think it’s awesome. We then grabbed some Sonic and headed out to a movie—on a Friday night! At 7 pm! Crazy stuff afoot when we get a date night on a Friday. (Incidentally, we went to see Date Night. Good parallel, no?)

Ring is fixed, movie is enjoyed, eyes are killing me because, well, I don’t know, I guess it’s just spring and pollen and maybe I’m just tired!!!

Long weekend ahead. Need to rest.

Runnin’ (but not the exercise type, which I should be doing instead if I only had the time…)

Busy day. TAKS testing in the AM (is there anything worse than watching someone else take a test?). Longview WOW World of William (Shakespeare, natch) planning meeting this afternoon. Going to be a killer workshop for the kids in conjunction with the Texas Shakespeare Festival at Kilgore College this summer—very excited about it! Karate class so Harrison could get some sparring practice in anticipation of his tournament this weekend. He’s doing better, but he’s still squirrely and has to do lots of extra pushups for goofing off in line. At least he’s starting to use better form as opposed to the random flailing he was doing a few weeks ago.

Bed time and up and at ‘em again in the morning. Harrison’s got his field day at school tomorrow, so I’ll probably play hooky for an hour or so and go watch him run around. Should be fun.

Bloomin’ Great!

Had several nice treats in the garden today.

First of all, the nasturtiums I planted way back in February are finally getting blooms. They’ve had leaves—lots and lots of leaves—for ages. But I stepped out of the garage this morning and noticed a bright red burst of color. There are several buds ready to open on each of the three plants I’ve got in the front bed, so I’m looking forward to seeing that display.

Secondly, I was looking at the sunflowers this afternoon and one of the seeds I planted yesterday is already poking its head up! I was floored at how quickly it sprung up. I’m very excited to see how this garden is going to come along. I’m very nervous about it now after all the work, the anticipation and the letdown, but I’ve got high hopes for it.

Finally, my green beans are going crazy! I planted six seeds in each mound and there have been at least five plants pop up in each one. I’ thinned them back to three per mound today so that should give them a little bit more room to spread out. There is only one gourd plant poking its head out, but I’ve got some more of those seeds, so I might go out and pop them in the ground this week.

The robins are singing and there is a nest on the beam right above the grill so I get to watch the mama bird come and sit in it pretty regularly. She didn’t care too much about Robert cooking out there last night, but I’m hoping she’ll stick around long enough to hatch her babies out. I watched her taking a bath in the water from the sprinkler this afternoon when I was watering the sunflowers and the lasagna garden.

Pollen and TAKS tests aside, I have to say that I really love spring!

Replanted

I know I’m flogging a dead horse here, but I’m so glad that I finally got the sunflower seeds back in the ground. The actual putting them in took about ten minutes, but I did have five different varieties I was alternating between, as well as some morning glories I had been soaking for a few days. I’m just hoping that they do well in the new, improved soil. So far, I’ve not seen any slugs around, but then there aren’t any tender new shoots for them to decimate, either. I’m going to invest in some cheap beer this weekend to put out in saucers for my slimy friends. Maybe some Lone Star or some Pabst.

Heading to bed now. We’ve started TAKS testing at work and I was able to spend today working in my room. I’m administering Thursday, but the rest of the week I’m on standby so I’m hoping to get my desk and the surrounding areas cleaned up some. Either way, I was exhausted when I got home today and the nap I took didn’t really help.

24 Body Count

Episode 19: 10 am to 11 am

None.

Again.

Seriously.

I can only take this to mean that Jack’s going to be kicking some hella-ass next week. My money is on the Russian sniper going down ASAP, and then after that, it’s pretty much a free for all. I think G.W.W.F.H.O.H.S. will probably meet her end before the end. Maybe Scooby.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I think Jack might be dying at the end of the last episode. I mean, I heard they were making a 24 movie, but how stupid would that be? It’s completely counter-intuitive to the whole show. The whole reason I bought into the thing in the first place was that they took an entire twenty-four hours to tell what happens in twenty-four hours. It was revolutionary, minus that crappy Johnny Depp movie, and has had me on the edge of my seat since the second season. (We missed the first season and spent the better part of a weekend watching it right before the second season started. Not early adopters, but early-ish.) At this point in the game, he’s pretty much lost it all. His wife. His new girlfriend. His dad was evil a few seasons back; that had to hurt. His daughter has pretty much grown up without him. Oh, yeah, he’s got a grandkid, but really, he’s kind of played out. You know he’d just spend the rest of his life in retirement, always looking over his shoulder and wondering when another one of “those days” was going to happen.

Anyhoo.

In the meantime, President Taylor has backed herself, via the “help” of Logan the Weasel, into a nasty corner from which she will likely be impeached. Funny—she sent her own kid to prison for her involvement in a murder last season, but this season she’s so hell bent on getting her peace accord signed that she’s allowed her cohort to be murdered by the Russians, one of the nations in her peace deal. Screwy.

Jack’s on the run from the authorities. He’s talked Scooby into working with him. He recognized that Chloe was leading him into a trap, albeit against her better judgment. He’s in cahoots with Mr. Blonde, who has provided him with all the guns and armor he’s going to need to get his bloody job done.

Oh, and acting on behalf of Logan the Weasel as a private security agent, D. B. Sweeney came by CTU to pick up G.W.W.F.H.O.H.S. and cart her off to ‘extract evidence’ from her. Is he going to make her watch hours of figure skating?

Season total, seventy. Jack, thirteen. I can only imagine that that’s about to change…

Down With Slugs!

That’s mine and Harrison’s battle cry.

i inadvertently killed all the sunflowers night before last by trying to kill the slugs. You see, we planted all these flowers around a perimeter in the hopes that they would grow to be a ‘house’ of sorts, as per the instructions of Sharon Lovejoy. I’ve got several of her books and really liked the looks of this sunflower house so I gathered up my materials (four varieties of sunflowers, all [potentially] reaching different heights, and a packet of morning glories) and set out to plant. I’ve been nurturing them for about two weeks now, excited every time I see another seedling sprouting out of the ground.

Alas, I had heard that slugs and snails really like the tender new shoots of flowers, particularly of the sun variety. I also read (in the above mentioned author’s books) that you could take paper cups, cut the bottom out and slide them over the new growth to act as kind of a collar to keep out any unwanted beasties.

Seems, though, that they have to be firmly affixed in the ground.

Der.

I went out two afternoons ago and noticed a baby slug sitting atop one of my very tender, very much anticipated, very much mine seedling sprouts. I saw red. I decided that if the collars won’t keep the critters out, I’d douse around the plants with something I knew would keep them out: salt.

Turns out, this is a terrible idea. Something that should have been researched in one of the dozens of books I’ve got on gardening in the house.

Funny, though, you’d think in all the books I’ve read on gardening, that one or two of them might mention not to put salt in your garden!!!! Perhaps I overlooked it, but I definitely don’t remember anyone saying not to do that.

So here’s my PSA to the gardening world: DON’T PUT SALT IN YOUR GARDEN!!! IT WILL KILL YOUR PLANTS!!!

Incidentally, if you’ve got some weeds in your plot—say, in the cracks on your driveway or somewhere similar, but definitely not near plants you love and adore and have spent countless hours babying, sprinkling a little salt might be exactly what you want.

Just sayin’.

So. I feel stupid. I have to start from scratch. I’m frustrated.

But I did get started again today. I took another idea from Sharon Lovejoy, this time from her blog that she writes for Lowes, about using paper sacks to plant in. She had a similar problem in her gourds, so she restarted them in her greenhouse in bags and transplanted them to the garden. I, more impatient being that I am, just trimmed some paper sacks down to about eight inches, cleared out a furrow in the compost/soil perimeter I had previously established for growing, and filled the bags with the cleared out soil. The bags are directly placed in the ground with about four or five inches showing above the surface. I figure I’ll keep them like this until the stalks get some decent growth to them and then just remove above the soil line. Or I might just leave them. Either way, they’re biodegradable and will make a wonderful barrier to keep out those slimy leaf eating bastards who insist on invading my garden.

I’m also thinking of investing in some cheap beer. I’ve heard that you can put shallow dishes with beer out in the garden and the slugs and snails will drown themselves in it. I’ll just have to make sure that I remove it before the kids go into the area to play. :)

Computer is hosing up.
AND I killed all my sunflowers. All of them. I'm going to replant seeds tomorrow, so it will be ok, but I've been pretty torn up over it today.
Otherwise, the garden is doing pretty good--the green beans are coming up, as are the gourds. I gave blood today, which was also pretty cool.
Going to bed now to toss and turn over my blundering black thumb. Sigh.

Moody

End o’ the week.

Tired. (Natch. What’s it like not always being tired? Anyone?)

Cranky. (Kids stole my tape dispenser and the Splenda tablets from my coffee center. Brats.)

Proud. (Son got stickers all week for behaving at school! Plants are taking hold in the garden! I got my soaker hoses in place in the flower beds and the sprinkler in place for the lasagna bed and the sunflower house! The sunflower house is sprouting pretty well! My green beans are sprouting really well!)

Annoyed. (Now that my watering systems are in place, it’s raining. I mean, yeah, I’m saving money by not having to manually water, but still, I was kind of proud of my work.)

Anticipatory. (Giving blood in the morning. Have been meaning to do so for about eight weeks now, having intended to give eight times this year [the maximum allowed in a year], but just haven’t been able to make it in. Doing it tomorrow; enough is enough. Also going to the Lowe’s clinic tomorrow with the boy to let him build a bird house. If you’ve got kids kindergarten and up, these workshops are awesome! They build stuff for free and, well, it’s at Lowe’s, so that’s a win. These two things aside, the hubby and I are planning on…doing nothing. No out of town engagements. No visits. We had been invited to an barbecue for some friends who are celebrating their birthdays, but that got canceled in light of the aforementioned rain. )

Sick to death. (Of the TAKS test. We’re administering next week. I hate my job, sometimes. I mean, not really, but I do hate the bullshit that goes along with it sometimes.

Going to bed. (Because I’m freakin’ tired.)

Gardening

Garden is coming along nicely. Got the veggies I bought last weekend in the ground yesterday. Seeds have been going in pretty regularly as my time has allowed. The sunflowers are sprouting, for the most part. I’ve got a few areas of the ‘walls’ that do not seem to be growing, but I’m going to give them a few more days. If all else fails, I’ll just replant those spots—I’ve got markers where they should be, so it won’t take too long to get it corrected. Green beans are sprouting from seed on the other side of the yard and I’m hoping to see my birdhouse gourds coming up any day now, as well. Still need to get the rose Robert got me a few weeks ago in the ground, but that will probably end up happening this weekend. Today I got my soaker hoses placed, but I’ve got to see about finding a little bit longer connector hose for the small bed—the one I had planned to use is about four feet too short. Drat.

All in all, it’s been a nice spring for getting my hands dirty. I’m ready to have my stuff in the ground, though, so that I can get to maintaining (which doesn’t take as much time) and get back into my sewing room and make some stuff. I’m feeling kind of sad that I’ve not done any of that lately. All in good time, though. :)

Simple Pleasures

Harrison and I had been working in the lasagna garden and had just gotten it finished.

[Correction: I was working in the garden while Harrison roamed around the backyard, occasionally stopping by to see what I had gotten done and offer suggestions. I think he’s ready for management.]

The tomatoes, tomatillos, squash and zucchini had just gotten in the ground and Harrison had just made his last suggestion for the project (“You should move this tomato plant here and put the tomatillo plant here.” [Basically, switch them.] “Why should I do that, son?” “Because it would make me happy.” Imp.)

I turned on the sprinkler and Harrison stood watching it, fascinated. About that time, Robert came outside with Laura; they had just gotten home. Laura was thrilled to see me and even more so to see Harrison and squawked her happy noise so I picked her up and snuggled her a bit.

She, around this time, noticed the sprinkler and became engrossed, as well, so I put her down to go explore. She promptly sat down near the slide where she could simultaneously pick and eat grass blades and watch the water over in the garden. I took this as my cue to quietly entertain her and her brother, so I broke out a small bottle of bubbles she had gotten back at Easter and started blowing them.

It took a few blows, but she eventually did and squawked again, signaling that I was doing something very good. She clambered up and came over to where I was sitting, grinning her ‘magic is afoot and I must partake in it’ smile. She was content to just watch the bubbles rise up, higher and higher, until they delicately popped. Harrison, on the other hand, took each bit of soap lather as a personal challenge; he jumped, lunged, twisted and annihilated those bubbles. They didn’t stand a chance against his cat-like ninja skills.

As mundane as this is—the kids chased bubbles and watched water squirt out of a sprinkler!—it’s this kind of ‘slice of life’ business that I really enjoy the most. Holidays are nice, birthdays are good, but I treasure the day to day time I spend with my family the most. Emily wanted to go back to a special day in Our Town, but I really have to say that I would trade almost every birthday party and all the stress over invitations, cleaning and exhaustion for just the simple days.

Time Suck

I came in here 30 minutes ago to post quickly about how tired I am (I ran tonight—at least I have an excuse this time!) and how I was going to be hitting the hay. I know, groundbreaking. Totally new stuff. Never before seen.

Oh, yeah. I’ve said all that before.

Well, dammit, I am tired. I did run and I am worn out.

And I was going to do a quickie and go to bed by 11 pm tonight.

And then Facebook sucked me in.

Man, that thing is dangerous. I try really hard not to spend too much time on it. I played one of those neighbor games on it last summer, but c’mon, I was home all day every day and I had the time to do it. Nowadays, I do good to just bathe the kids on a semi-regular basis, much less trade goodies in a pretend city.

But it’s always fascinating to see what things people are posting, only because I think it gives you an insight into their psyche you might not get any other way. What people are drawn to—and are willing to share with their entire friend list—is pretty telling.

Are you a bleeding heart liberal? Red hot conservative? Don’t care, just want to get stoned all the time? Listen to music with disturbing lyrics?

I’ve got friends who I would never discuss any of these things with, but yet I know all of these things about them. I know who has new piercings, who got a new pet, who thinks the Democrats are bleeding idiots, who thinks the Republicans are soulless devils and what TV shows they all watch.

I really kind of like the Facebook universe, but sometimes I have to just look away because it can be too much to take in.

Sometimes I just don’t want to know.

24 Body Count

Episode 18: 9 am to 10 am

None.

That’s right. Not a single, solitary kill tonight. Jack’s got cold sweats, ready to kill someone, anyone, just to get the bloodlust out of his system but he didn’t log a single shot. No stabbing. No necks being broken. Certainly no heads being cut off.

So. Season total is seventy, Jack logging in thirteen.

And we wait.

Chloe is still in charge of CTU. President Taylor came to visit after she realized that Jack’s planned interrogation of G.W.W.F.H.O.H.S. would undermine the peace treaty she’s been working on for months; the involvement of the Russian government in the assassination of M.E.P. could make folks…uneasy. Taylor ordered Jack to step down from his investigation, which was not what he wanted to hear, and then she told him she was ‘removing’ him from CTU for debriefing at the local Air Force base.

He wasn’t so keen on that idea.

A stolen chopper later, we have Jack heading off for what can only be total annihilation of anyone who gets in his way.

Still no Tony….

The Boys Are Back In Town

My boys are home.

Robert has been gone for the past two nights to a guitar show in Dallas with James, helping to sell James’ amp modifiers. Considering how many times I go out of town for art teacher conventions and workshops, I didn’t begrudge him this but it certainly did get lonely without him around.

Harrison was also gone for much of the weekend. He spent the past two nights with my parents, coming home for his sojourn to Lowe’s for some building action. I missed seeing him, but I’ll be honest—I am around him day in and day out from dawn to bedtime. I love him more than I love the air I breath, but sometimes I just need a little bit of a break from him.

This weekend with him at my folks’ was just about perfect. Not only did I get some much needed ‘Just Laura’ time—something that I hardly ever get as opposed to the goobs and gobs of ‘Just Harrison’ time—but I also got a good bit of ‘Just Mommy’ time during naps and at night. When he returned this afternoon, I was able to relax with him in a way that I’ve not been able to do in a while.

I guess we all need a day or two of break time every now and again to recoup. I’m glad, though, that my men-folk are back because as much as I like my break, I like them even better.

Quiet

Spent a quiet day with the girl. Harrison spent last night with my parents, coming home for a few hours so we could go to the Lowe’s Build and Grow workshop today. Afterwards, we bought some yard stuff—more amendments for my backyard lasagna garden and some watering gizmos that I’ve been eyeing—and then he went back to mom and dad’s. I don’t want it to sound like I don’t like being around Harrison because I really do. Thing is, I’m around him a lot. On the flip side, I am rarely around just Laura. So getting to spend the day with my girl was kind of cool. We chased each other, played tickley games and just hung out. Good day, quiet day. Tomorrow the boy comes back and we can get back to our regularly scheduled noise fest. :)

Friday, Finally

Long week. Tired of teenagers. Worn out with Harrison’s behavior. Just want to lay down and sleep away my troubles. Not sure the weekend will be long enough to do that, but I’ll certainly try…

Kindergarten Troubles

Hated to do it, but I pulled the boy from sparring practice at karate tonight. He had a really good month last month, barely getting into trouble at all, but it seems that a switch has been flipped this week and he’s had a note home every day. It’s never anything very bad, but it is consistent. Horse-playing. Banging on the keyboard in computer class. Talking when he knows he’s supposed to be listening. All small things, but added up, they equal a rough week for my little five year old. The worst of it is that he’s starting to feel the drag of it and is getting very frustrated. I’m hoping that watching and not getting to participate in class tonight will be motivation enough to keep him in line. We’ll see.

Ballin’

So my husband got me a diamond ring recently. We’ll have been married for sixteen years this summer and I’ve not ever had one. When we got married, we were extremely young and poor so we couldn’t afford fancy pants wedding ring sets. We got some nice bands, but they were not super-duper expensive.

Last week, he took me to the jeweler and showed me the stone he had picked out (round cut, as I had mentioned before that I liked, but he picked out the specific stone) and told me to pick out the ring part to set it in. I looked at what they had and found one that I liked but 1) it had extra diamonds on the sides of the central setting and I didn’t really want or need those and 2) it was platinum and was waaaaay out of budget. We talked with the jeweler, though, about what we liked about its style and he said he’d find us something similar without the extra stones that could be gotten in white gold, which was perfect. He let me take the stone in a temporary setting (I think it was a Tiffany setting—I’m really pretty ignorant of this whole fancy ring thing, to be honest) while he ordered the new ring and I’ve been wearing it for a week.

Last night, though, Robert took the temporary ring so he could run over to the store on his lunch break and get it replaced. While I was at work today, he texted me to see if I could run outside to get it from him if he stopped by. My kids have been using the glass walled stairwell vestibules as giant light boxes to trace their drawings onto clean paper this week, so I told him to come right on up to us, that he’d probably see us through the window.

Fast forward to several minutes later when he drove up outside the doors. I stood up from where I was sitting, chatting with one of the kids who had finished her work and was relaxing for the rest of the class period.

“Where you goin’, Miss?”

“I’ve got to run out there and see my husband—he just drove up.”

“That’s your husband?” All the kids turn to see Robert driving up in his silver Charger.

“Yup. That’s him.”

“You be rollin’ in that, Miss?”

“Yup.”

“Man, Miss, you be ballin’!”

They loved his car. The ring, yeah, they liked it, but they loved his car.

Kids.

24 Body Count

You know, most of the time I like being right. I revel in it. Do the “I’m right and you’re wrong” dance. That sort of thing.

I hated being right tonight.

Episode 17: 8 am to 9 am

• As I’ve been predicting for weeks, Renee got shot tonight. She, of course, got some horizontal hula on with Jack right beforehand, so that they were both at the peak of their happiness before she had to die. Der. She had to die, of course, because Jack cannot be happy—it’s in his contract. Less existentially, though, she had to die because…
• …earlier in the show, she saw a Russian guy pushing Angry Middle Eastern Guy Who Assassinated M.E.P. on a gurney. What she didn’t see was that the Russian guy injected some sort of toxin that gave Angry a delayed cardiac arrest. To kill him. She died because the Russian guy recognized her and decided that she had to be taken out before she remembered where she had seen him before. (I was lookin’ back to see if you were lookin’ back to see if I was lookin’ back to see if you were lookin’ back at me…) He, of course, was going to kill Jack too, but I mean, c’mon, the season’s not over yet so he can’t die. Silly Russke.
• Russian Hit Guy also killed an innocent apartment dweller who had the misfortune to have an office across the way from Jack which made his window the perfect place from which to snipe. Apparently in 24 World, you can’t even be sitting at work minding your own business without getting gutted.

So. Three total kills this episode. Seventy for the season. Jack’s got thirteen for the season, but I’ve got the feeling that number’s about to go waaaaaaay up. Just a hunch, you might say.

In other news, Chloe’s in charge of CTU now. Bubba Gump is being blamed for hiring G.W.W.F.H.O.H.S and causing this whole mess of a day. M.E.P.’s wife is about to be signed in as Provisional President so she can sign the peace deal. Oh, and former President Logan the Weasel’s back in action, trying to “help” convince the Russians that they need to play nice on the peace deal.

So, good episode. I mean, it kind of sucked, but very much a motivated plot.

Still waiting for Tony…

Sleeeeeeep….

Don’t think I’ll be getting to writing about 24 tonight, mostly because it’s a two hour episode and we haven’t started it, but also because I’m so freaking tired, I’m about to go to bed. The boy wanted to go run after school today and I just didn’t have the energy to do it. He was disappointed but I promised we’d go tomorrow. I’m glad he’s enjoying it so much. I really love it, too, but I’m just so nub-worn from the past few weeks that I just don’t know what’s what.

So that’s about it here. Grades in, contests all done, just have one six-week-grading period left. I’m probably taking the kids on an art club field trip this weekend, but maybe not. Depends on how exhausted I am by the end of the week. We’ve also got one planned for the middle of May, but surely I’ll be rested by then. Right?

Collective Sigh

Last minute posting. Again.

Ran my butt off all weekend. State VASE Friday and Saturday, got up and graded for several hours today and just spent an hour getting 90% of the grades in the computer. I’ve still got one more class to get in, but I’m going to take care of them tomorrow morning. As long as they’re in before 9 am, it’s all ok, so I’m going to collapse.

Robert, meanwhile, took care of the kids all weekend. He watched them while I was out of town and then, while I was in my classroom grading today, he took them to Whitehouse to pick up the jogging stroller we just bought through Craigslist. He has said he wants to try running with me and Harrison, so I’m looking forward to that. I think Laura will enjoy being in the fast stroller, as well. Best of all, we spent $45 on a stroller that I found to sell for almost $400 at Wal-Mart. Sweet!

Heading to bed now to get rested up for the week. Think I might be able to slow down a little bit now…I think.

Long Day At VASE

Home from Houston. Man, I’m tired. We got up at 5 am this morning and have been running ever since. We took 12 artworks and of those, five received medals. We didn’t get any Gold Seals, but I’m really proud of our kids, nonetheless.

I’m glad to be home and ready to be in my own bed. The hotel was nice, but it’s always best to get back home and be around my family and my own surroundings.

Got to get rested up because I still need to go in and do grades at work tomorrow. Meh.

Museum Day

Long day in Houston today. We left Longview at 8 am and drove all morning to get to Houston in time for lunch. After stuffing ourselves at Chipotle, we went back up the road to the Museum of Fine Arts and saw the amazing Alice Neel retrospective (among other things). Then we headed up to Kemah Boardwalk to eat some supper and hang out for a while. Getting ready now for bed and the even longer day ahead of us tomorrow.

(*In the interest of full disclosure, I posted this—or something akin to it—on Friday night around 10 pm. It posted fine from my phone and I assumed all was well, but when I was posting tonight [Sunday], I noticed that this entry was gone. Poof. No idea why. So, yeah, these aren’t exactly the words I used in exactly the order I used them, but they’re pretty close. Makes me wonder what else is missing. Damn Blogger.)

End of My Week (Beginning of My Loooong Weekend)

Getting geared up to go to State VASE tomorrow. Got my classroom ready for my sub. Hope my kids aren’t total monsters. I hate leaving my classes with anyone else. It’s not like someone else can’t watch them and keep them in line. I just hate knowing the shenanigans that my students will (at least try to be) getting up to.

Sigh.

Watched some Top Gun on tv a little while ago. That has to be the worst best movie ever. Or maybe the best worst movie. I don’t know. But it’s awesome in its terribleness, that much I do know. Examined piece by piece—the stilted dialogue, Kelly McGillis’ matted, permed hair and whorey red lipstick, the not-so-subtle gay subtext—it should be the worst movie on the planet. Somehow, though, despite all these things—or perhaps because of them—it’s so awful that it transcends to sublime.

Alls I know is, if I ever need a jet plane flown, Tom Cruise is first on my list. Pre-jumping-on-couches, pre-glib-spewing-at-Matt-Lauer, pre-braces Tom Cruise. Because he was perfect back then. Wasn’t he?

Random Stuff

Plus:

Longview WOW/Dalton Days posters done. Bunco canceled (actually, it was scheduled for the end of the month and I just had my head on backwards. Ooops.) so I didn’t have to drive all the way out to Waskom. Papers stacked and ready to grade. Took the boy to karate and watched the girl walk around the room while he was training.

Minus:

Desk is a pit at work and I need to have everything ready for the sub on Friday. Oh, and I have to dig out some kind of work for the kids to do while I’m gone Friday. Papers stacked and ready to grade. (Really, I hate grading more than any other aspect of teaching. I don’t mind the kids being obnoxious—they’re teenagers, so what else would they be?—but the grading drives me ape crap bananas!)

In Other News:

Laura officially has allergies and is now taking Zyrtec to counteract the gummy eyes this pollen has given her.

I’m thinking of getting a running stroller so I can run with the baby in tow—I think she’d think it was pretty cool.

The weather is supposed to be good tomorrow so I’m looking forward to running with my boy.

I saw two tiny bits of green poking out of the ground in the sunflower house area. Looks like they’re already taking off! Need to take pictures before it gets any more green so we’ll have ‘before’ and ‘after’ (and lots of ‘during’) shots.

Late

Working on posters for Dalton Days. Really need to think through this volunteering to make posters thing I keep doing.

Sigh.

Ran with the boy today. We missed one day last week, so we need to catch up on that, I think, but I also think I’m going to wait on that for a few days. Too much this week to do.

24 Body Count

Episode 15: 6 am to 7 am

• After watching the entire episode and wondering if anyone was going to die, M.E.P.’s former head of security (and former boyfriend of M.E.P.’s daughter) took one for the team. CTU had him on the satellite, were preparing an ambush for him and at the last second, Girl Who Was Formerly Hair Over Her Shoulder let him in on the plan so he could divert his path. Here’s my problem with this bit of action: Former Head of Security is driving, blissfully unaware that he’s being followed. No one else in his camp knows he’s being followed except for G.W.W.F.H.O.H.S. At the last second, she diverts him from the path he’s driving into a parking garage to get CTU off his scent. While he’s in there, away from the ever present eye of the government, he quickly pulls M.E.P. out of his vehicle and into the trunk of another car that, surprise, surprise, one of his teammates drives away. How did she and the other two guys with her get there so quickly? I call foul.

Episode 16: 7 am to 8 am

• When G.W.W.F.H.O.H.S. realizes her cover is broken and she’s trying to leave CTU, the security guards try to stop her. She’s not feeling that. She pops two of them.
• Later, at the tenement where Jack and Co. are sneaking in to try to save M.E.P. from certain death, they take out two lookouts on the roof, the girl who drove the car with M.E.P. in the trunk (good job, Renee!) and three fellas in the back room acting as IT for the internet transmission of the assassination of M.E.P.
• Yep. M.E.P. goes down, too. I have to admit, I was surprised by this one. They don’t usually go after the high ranking officials. Lackeys, yes. Henchmen, sure. Some guy who needs his head cut off? Jack’s on it. Presidents of nations? Must be the end of the series and lame duck activities are afoot.

Totals: These two episodes, seven; entire season, sixty-seven. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t paying attention to how many Jack got this time. I’m pretty sure he got at least one of the IT guys, but I was kind of off in LaLa Land. We’ll call his total thirteen and be happy.

As predicted, Scooby went through the roof. I see him finding G.W.W.F.H.O.H.S. in a dark alleyway sometime in the near future and her not making it out. Apparently, she’s not a double agent but rather a mercenary. That was kind of crappy, but I guess it’s as realistic as anything else.

Sweetknuckle seems to have weathered his heart attack pretty well. Taylor’s Man Friday and Military Fella are going down for treason, despite the fact that they saved millions of lives in exchange for the one Presidential life they squandered.

Tony didn’t make any appearances. I’m not giving up, though. Nina came back for three seasons before they killed her ass off. I still have hope that he’ll show up and stir the pot a little.

It’s the end of the season and, sadly, the end of the series, so the double episodes are stacked up from now through sweeps week. As such, things are getting…hectic…at CTU. I know that all the stops are being pulled right now, creating a veritable pyrotechnic show of drama, suspense and a deluge of bullets, but I have to ask: please don’t sell the audience short in this last hurrah.

Ducks in a Row

So, I’ve got tons of crap to do this week and it kind of all crept up on me without me noticing. Of course. Sigh.

First and foremost, I’ve got to get grades in the computer. They’re actually due by next Monday, but I’m going to Houston on Friday with the State VASE winners and so I won’t be in class to take last second work from teenagers. So sad for them. ;)

Speaking of not being here on Friday, I need to get stuff ready for the sub on that day. Seems simple enough, but I’ve put off enough times to know that if I don’t get a jump on it, it will go from child’s play to me running around like a chicken with my head cut off in no time flat. So. Need to get some work gathered up.

Really need to get some laundry done. I’ve been kind of piddling with it this weekend, but I need to get serious about it and get caught up. Bleh.

Need to run an extra day since I only ran two days last week. Harrison probably won’t be happy about that, but the dangling carrot of the Red Nose Run has kept him going thus far so maybe that will help. He’s been checking out the CircusFit website and is really excited about that, so maybe it will hold his attention. He’s doing pretty well—much better than I would have figured he’d do. At the very least, he’s getting much, much better at situps, which he’s been doing at karate for months now but has not gotten really proficient with until now. So that’s cool.

Need to get my sunflower seeds in the ground. Have the bed made up and ready to drop seeds in, just didn’t get them in this weekend. The nice thing is that planting them takes mere minutes. Then I just have to remember to water them every day. Sigh. As a corollary note to the planting, I need to get some pine bark mulch to go in my flower beds. In the kids’ sunflower house, I’m putting it in the middle as a cushion on which they can sit. In the neighboring lasagna bed, I’m putting it down the middle, much as I did last year, to serve as a walking path. Oddly enough, I’m not putting it anywhere to actually serve as a mulch, I don’t think. I didn’t use it last year and the plants did just fine. Thinking that I’m going to continue with that plan.

Oh, yeah, I need to sleep, too, I think. Long weekend wore me out. On Friday, Robert and I went out on the first Date Night we’ve had in, well, I don’t remember how long. The next day we went to Canton and walked around for a few hours in the spring sun. The weather was just about perfect for the outing, but it still wore us all out. Today we did Easter at church, including a killer egg hunt (thanks Zoe!) and then went to visit family members far and wide.

Suffice it to say, we’re all beat. The hubby and the kids are all sacked out and I’m heading that direction as soon as I hit ‘Send.’

So, good night one and all. Happy Easter, Happy Ostara, Happy Spring, Happy Whatever You Like To Celebrate!

Happy Bed Time!

Killing time while Mario regenerates his heart points. The boy and I have been playing Super Paper Mario for a few weeks now and, much as I hate to admit it, I'm really enjoying it. I've not played any video games since I was a teenager, at least not seriously, so to have put twenty-four hours into one (a small amount in terms of average gamer time) is kind of a big deal for me. I'm probably seven or so levels from finishing this game, so that's cool. Harrison has lots more to go, but he's cool with that, as well.

If you live in the East Texas area and have never been to La Maches in Jeffersin, I urge you to get there as quickly as you can. The food is spectacular and the wine is a religious experience. I don't even care that I stained my favorite shirt with a drop of oil--it was that good.
Love my honey!

Hunting Easter Eggs

As a child, we had an Easter egg hunt at school. I was eating one of my eggs on the way home and saw that some dye had gotten through the shell. I figured that it was bad (I was in elementary--my logic skills weren't quite honed just yet...), so I put it in the only trash can I could find: the car's ashtray.
Flash forward to the end of school. May in Houston. Hot and humid and generally nasty. My family doesn't smoke so the ashtray doesn't get emptied a whole lot. Mom notices a smell in the car. A dead smell. She searches the entire station wagon and finds nothing. My dad pulls out all the seats thinking one of our myriad animals has climbed under them and died.
They eventually found the egg and the proper blame was placed.
I tell this story to parents and grandparents of young children to warn you to be vigilant, watching each and every one of those darned eggs they get their hands on.
Harrison left an egg in my classroom and I get to go get it tomorrow on my day off. Thank you karma. Thank you irony fairies.