Blood Letting

So. A new year.

I won’t bore you with all my ‘Gonna Be A Better Amy’ New Year’s Resolutions that are the same as everyone else’s. (Weight loss? Check. More patience with the kids? Check. Spend less blah blah blah whatever. Check.)

I am going to mention that I intend to give blood as much as they will let me this year, not because I want you to think I’m really cool but because it’s something that needs to be done and I hope that if someone else sees that I’m giving blood, they’ll give blood too. I’ll spare you the statistics of how many lives are saved by blood donation every year because they’re boring, but rest assured that it’s a ton. Most importantly, many areas of the country are dropping dangerously low in their donated blood and should an emergency occur, things could get hairy and people could die.

So, tomorrow (or likely Saturday, since everyone is going to be closed tomorrow), I intend to go to a blood bank and give ‘em my arm. Years ago, in college, I donated blood every eight weeks and so I expect this to be a walk in the park. It doesn’t hurt—the needle prick they do to test your blood type hurts more than the arm needle—and it’s over relatively quickly. You get juice and cookies and a nifty t-shirt, although I’m not really worried about the shirts—my goal is the coffee mug because, really, if you’re going to tempt me, tempt me with my caffeine addiction.

Good luck to all in their new years and may you all be as happy and healthy as possible.

Is Laura Hobbes?

As promised, I found the Calvin photos that made me realize that Bill Watterson is a genius. I freely admit these are not my images—they are scanned from my copy of The Indispensible Calvin and Hobbes, included here in a spirit of hero worship.

How could he have known 17 years ago that I would be giving birth to his creation?

Scary.

Get Outta The House!

Thinking of doing another scavenger hunt with the boy. We’ve been cooped up in the house for days now, only going out a little bit here and there to get some fresh air and sunshine when it was possible.

I did a little yard work Sunday—hauled the nine bags of leaves the yard guys have left at the house around to the back corner where my lasagna garden will be next spring—and then Harrison and I played outside for a bit. We kicked the soccer ball around for a while and then I showed him how to play H-O-R-S-E, the last vestigial trace of any knowledge I got from PE in high school. Harrison’s got a mini-basketball goal and we used the soccer ball as our basketball. He didn’t care—he was excited to be outside, doing something and playing a game. He wasn’t excited about losing any of the rounds—he won two and I won two—but he’s never really excited about losing, so that’s no surprise.

I’m such an inside girl, it never occurs to me that he would want to go outside. When I do think about it, it seems obvious—how stupid that I could overlook such a thing. How could a five-year-old not want to go outside and play?

The only time I’m interested in being outside is in Spring when I’m putting my garden beds together or in fall when the air is crispy. Summer is such agony for me with the heat and the, well, heat. Winter cold doesn’t bother me, but the wet that usually accompanies it—not snow, but just East Texas rain—is miserable. It’s the kind of weather that is best experienced on the couch with a cup of cocoa and a book or perhaps while falling asleep in a warm bed.

So if the weather cooperates tomorrow, I think we’re definitely going to go outside and get some air. It will give him something to do besides pester me to read the latest Magic Tree House book (yeah, I love the books, yeah, I’m excited about reading them with him but good golly! I’m sick of that being all I read!). He might even like it as much as when I let him play on the internet (www.kidoz.com is awesome, y’all!).

Amy’s Fun-Time Laundry Game*

I have this race with my clothes dryer every time I pull clean laundry out of it.

We have this bar hanging over the washer and dryer and I’ve gotten in the habit of hanging clothes directly onto it instead of pulling everything into a basket, hauling said basket back to the bedroom and then forgetting it’s there while I find something I would rather be doing than hanging laundry. (Scrubbing tile grout? Changing poopy diapers? Grading papers?)

While I’m hanging clothes, there’s a light on in the dryer. Kind of a courtesy light, I suppose. It helps you see into the depths of the cavernous space that is my dryer. I suppose the Whirlpool people figured that seeing a foot and a half back from the open door without  the assistance of Edison Magic is akin to sticking your hand into a muddy pool of crocodiles. I mean, they might not bite you, but either way, you’ll never see them coming.

The light shines for some amount of time before it clicks off, very unceremoniously. I’m not sure how long before it clicks off. I know there’s enough time for me to walk back to my bedroom and get more hangers, but there’s no way that I will finish hanging the load before it shuts off if I do that. Half of the load, maybe, if I don’t piddle around. I suppose I could set a timer and then open the door, fold and hang some laundry and actually see, but I prefer to keep specific times out of my head. For one thing, my math-tardation pretty much means that I’ll forget the numbers by the time they’re not directly in front of me anymore. Besides, it would mean that I’d have to actually do a load of laundry, dry it and get it hung up. I’m too lazy for that.

Thing is, I don’t want the pressure of actually knowing. If I knew it was exactly seven minutes, then I’d become obsessed, desperately keeping pretend time in my head and dreading the moment that it would click off. If I were to finish early, I’d worry about the slipshod job I had done in trying to get finished so quickly.

So my game is this—I desperately try to hang an entire load of laundry before the light goes off. I long ago eschewed folding underwear and sock as an “after hanging” activity. These articles of clothing go into the basket at the foot of the door. Everything else is hung as quickly as possible, all while trying to keep it separated into household-member-specific bunches. If it’s a big load, I might even forego that nicety and just hang-hang-hang-hang-hang until it’s all up. The one rule is that everything must be out of the dryer before the light turns off.

Sad thing is, I usually don’t win. The dryer will be sitting there, doing nothing and I’ll think I’ve got at least two or three more minutes left and danged if it doesn’t click off.

The sane person—the normal person—would just take this as the way it goes and continue on as if nothing happened. This hypothetical person might not even notice that something had happened. If they did notice it turned off (and they’re worried about the dryer crocs), they’d probably just reach over, tap the button that turns the light back on and continue their business.

I, on the other hand, spend the entire (seven minutes?) time trash talking the machine, telling it that there’s no way it’s going to win this time and basically promising that it is [this] close to being my bee-yotch. When the light goes off, depending on my company, I will either cuss the dastardly thing or just send it a dirty look. (I don’t mind teaching my kids how to be crazy, apparently, as long as they don’t cuss while they’re doing it…)

I have pretty simple forms of entertainment. I don’t get to watch TV or movies very much and when I do, there are either furry characters with hands up their backsides or men in tights and capes. Sometimes robots. Sometimes a combination of the three. I don’t get to read very much, outside of bathroom reading. I just finished Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol and was more excited about the fact that I was reading for pleasure!! (and not just on the john!!!) than I was about the book itself. This is not to denigrate the book—I really liked it! But still, the only books I’ve been reading lately have been of the kid lit variety, so it was an accomplishment.

So cussing out the machinery while I try to outwit it is pretty much it for me. In some ways, I’m a little girl again, being defeated by that little clucking twerp in I Took A Lickin’ From A Chicken. I eventually got pretty good at tic-tac-toe, but there was a lot of grumbling at the machine before I did. I suppose if the curve stays true, I’ll eventually beat the dryer at this game.

That’s going to take a lot of laundry washing/drying/hanging, though. Maybe I don’t mind so much that it wins as much as it does…

* Or, It Might Be Time To Up Amy’s Medications.

Gonna See Mickey!

We’re going to Disney!

In a year.

We’ve been making plans with my parents to take the kids to Disney World next year and we’re having a heck of a time deciding when to go. Mom wants to see all the Christmas stuff, so  December it is, but because of my work schedule, it will have to be the week of Christmas or the week after Christmas. Price-wise, they’re pretty much the same, so that’s not really an issue. It pretty much boils down to whether we want to be driving to Disney on Christmas or from Disney. I’m still not decided. I wish we could wait a few weeks and go in early January, but with my work schedule, that’s not going to happen.

On the plus side, the weather will definitely be better than our last trip—we were there in late June/early July and good God Almighty, it was hot! I mean, summer in Florida shouldn’t be that big a surprise, but wow!

We watched the promo DVD that we got for our trip two years ago tonight and Harrison is in his bed, dreaming of being a pirate. I can’t wait for him to be there again. He had a blast last time, but this time he’ll be six years old and capable of so much more. I worried about taking Laura so early—she’ll be almost two—but the neighbors across the street took their kids when their son was about that age and they said he had a blast, so I suppose it will be OK. At the very least, she will be virtually free. Kids stay free and get into the parks free under the age of three, so that’s cool. That’s how we did the last trip—Harrison was a few weeks shy of three so it was probably the cheapest Disney vacation we could have taken with him.

In all, I’m looking forward to it. I’m sure I’ll obsess over it for the next year, second guessing every decision, but whatever happens, I’m sure it will be awesome.

Reading Time

With a mere twenty pages left of the newest Dan Brown to go, I have left my Snuggie (thanks honey—awesome Christmas gift!!!) and my couch to come post. Quickly.

I don’t pretend that Dan Brown is a perfect writer. His characters sometimes get a little blustery and obnoxious for my tastes, but the stories are always captivating. True or not, they are always interesting and I can never seem to put them down.

Case in point: on Wednesday, I picked up The Lost Symbol from my bookshelf where it’s been sitting for at least a month. Having neither time nor energy to read, I had almost forgotten it was there. But I needed something to fill a void of time in which I probably should have been working, but chose rather to spend in relative idleness.

Now, Saturday night, I’m almost done with it. Had I not had to take care of kids, deal with Christmas or talk to my husband, I could have finished it much sooner.

Brown keeps the pace clipping along very rapidly, using short chapters and an economy of description. Much like Michael Crichton, his books are quick reads that are almost always hard for me to put down.

Of course, I’m drawn to a character who is an art historian, being an art teacher and all myself. It’s much easier to sympathize with Brown’s Langdon than any of Tom Clancy’s beefy military guys.

So, back to my Snuggie and the last twenty pages. Night all!

Presents, Presents Everywhere…

My toes are extra toasty, thanks to the super comfy soft socks that hubby got me. :)

Christmas was wonderful this year. Harrison is really at the perfect age to enjoy the whole Santa experience in all it’s pain and glory, so we had lots of fun with it. He really sweated telling Santa about how good he’s been lately (I’ve never seen such an honest five-year-old—“I was really good in the morning but kind of bad in the afternoon…”). Once he had that hurdle passed (Santa admonishing him that while he had been pretty good, he needed to keep his standards up and not start slacking), he moved on to getting the house ready for the Big Guy. The cookies were set up just so, the reindeer had some oats set out to snack on while waiting, and the NORAD satellites were checked religiously to see how much longer until the anticipated arrival.

Any deviation from accepted behavior resulted in me or Robert pulling out a cell phone and getting ready to dial. “But I don’t want to be on the Naughty List!”

The look on his face this morning while he was surveying the presents was priceless. He didn’t even notice the Batcave at first, he was so agog with glee a the presents under the tree. But turning slightly to the side, he saw that not only had Santa left the awesome Batcave (with Batman, Robin and three villains—thank you Target, poo on you Toys’R’Us for not having it!), but his best stuffed friend Brown Bear was wearing a gi and a yellow belt and was guarding a pair of nun chucks. Oh, but Santa was kind.

His favorite non-Santa gift was definitely the complete run of the Magic Tree House books. We didn’t delve into the Merlin Missions, which pick up where the MTH books leave off, but I figure that twenty-eight books is more than enough to keep a five-year-old happy for some time. We’ll get to those books in due time, I figure.

Laura enjoyed the din of Christmas morning, as well. She is, of course, too young to know or care about Santa, so we didn’t bother getting her up when Harrison got up. She slept in until 9 AM and then kind of sipped at a bottle of milk while playing with toys. She loved ripping the paper and crinkling it around. She really loved the purple and pink dress that Harrison had picked out to give her and the bristle blocks I got her. She’s still up in the air about the Hasbro Playskool Busy Ball Popper (no pun intended…). I bought it based on the review I read at amalah.com, which made me cry I laughed so hard. So far, she’s been pretty receptive to it, but seems to enjoy pulling it over more than anything else. For Harrison, on the other hand, this thing is catnip. (Kidnip?) He can’t keep his stinkin’ hands off the thing if he’s in the room and he’s not playing with his Batcave or reading his MTH books.

So at least someone’s entertained by it.

Hope everyone else had a great holiday. Merry Christmas to all. Back to, well, the rest of my holiday tomorrow. So more lounging. Man, it’s hard, this teachin’. :)