Spring may really be here after all!

I'm SO ready to see some hummingbirds. Here's a neat little place to track their progress. Looks like it's time to get the feeders cleaned up and ready for the hungry little creatures. I really don't have a lot of luck in attracting birds, but the hummers and goldfinches usually feel sorry for me and set up shop in my yard.

We have a back porch/lanai type area on our house, and we love to sit out there and watch whoever decides to come in for a little lunch. One time I could swear that a little hummer was reading the paper with my mother-in-law.

Aaaahhh...pretty soon, I'll be sitting out with my glass of iced tea, feeling the warm air, and watching the show.

Ciao.

Birthdays really are nice.

Thanks to all of my family and friends that remembered little old me on my birthday. I made the crew take me out to eat Imo's pizza. I'm the only one in the family that likes it, and the last time we had it was for my birthday LAST year!!! BWAAAHAHAHAHA!!! Being queen for a day makes me absolutely giddy with power!

As you can see from the ginormous candles on the cake, I am 44 years old (or young, as all the old people say), but I prefer to think of it as 22 folded in half.

Ciao baby.

This is my new idol.

I don't even know how I landed on this. Irene has no problem whatsoever in her wardrobe choices. She just may have the solution to all my worries about my wardrobe. She's stylin' and happy. What more could you ask?

Bingo!!!

You Are Likely a Third Born

At your darkest moments, you feel vulnerable.At work and school, you do best when you're comparing things.When you love someone, you tend to like to please them. In friendship, you are loyal to one person.Your ideal careers are: sales, police officer, newspaper reporter, inventor, poet, and animal trainer.You will leave your mark on the world with inventions, poetry, and inspiration.

The Birth Order Predictor

The end of an era

Today is garbage day at Casa de Musicgeek. What you see above are the remains of the trampoline. It was a good trampoline...nice and springy. It stood proudly in the corner of our backyard for 3 (or maybe 4, we don't really remember) years.

Countless jumps have been jumped by our girls and all the other kids in the neighborhood. On hot, windless days, groups of little children sprawled out on it telling stories and secrets. At any given time, I could look out my kitchen windows and count the heads bobbing up and down, and know that everyone was safe and accounted for. Later in the day, moms would call kids in for dinner, which would be gobbled down so the kids could get in "a few more jumps" before darkness and mosquitoes brought the day to a close. Some little stragglers would have to retrieve forgotten shoes before a rainstorm or the lawnmower could find them.

That's been the rhythm of the summer at my home for the past few years. Time goes by, trampolines get rickety and unsafe, friends move, kids grow and change...and mom and dad have to try to keep up with it all.

It's time for a new routine and rhythm. From all indications so far, basketballs bouncing and knitting needles clicking will figure heavily into it.

Mommy just needs to look out a different window.

The wheels on the bus...

went round and round forever, or so it seemed.

I took a little field trip with Daughter the Younger's class to the Illinois State Capitol. We started out at about 8:00 am, and pulled back into school around 6:00pm. It was rainy and cold, but we still had a great day. The kids were thrilled because they got the go-ahead to bring along electronic gizmos of their choosing for the long bus ride. They were also supposed to pack lunch and enough snacks to make it through the day. I'm almost on a professional level with snacking, so my backpack should have come with a llama to carry it. I also brought my scaled-down purse, a book, notebook and pens, a couple of water bottles, Kleenex, hand cleaner, extra snacks in case there were snackless kids, and my trusty Zen mp3 player. I really could have used that llama.

We made four stops on our tour of Lincoln related stuff.

1. The New Salem Historic Village - It was pretty rainy and cold on our first stop. There were volunteers in period costumes in two of the buildings in the village. They had fires going in the fireplaces and answered students questions about life in Lincoln's time. It would be a good place to go back to in nicer weather. The lady at the info desk said they have more of the buildings open in the warmer months. We could look into them, they just didn't have any villagers in them.
2. Abraham Lincoln's Tomb - All of the kids rubbed Abe's nose for luck.
3. The Illinois State Capitol Building - The kids got to see where the senators and congressmen do their thing. I personally think they could do without a few of the $100,000 chandeliers, and get an art teacher in my kid's school...just saying.
4. The Illinois State Museum - This was our last stop, and was within walking distance of the Capitol building. It was the kind of place where you could have meandered through slowly and probably learned a lot about Illinois...fourth graders aren't into meandering. Really.

On the way back to school, the cluster of kids that I was sitting near were trying to keep track of our progress on the shiny new maps they picked up at the Capitol building. They were BIG into the literature that was available there. I just loved it when the workers had to put more out for them. I'm paying for that crap, damnit, so it better be out there for my little darlin's class.Some Kentucky Fried Chicken and a hot bath put the icing on the cake of the day.

After seeing the facilities in the New Salem Village, I'm pretty safe in saying that Abe never had it so good.

This just makes me laugh!!!

Thanks so much to the folks at You Knit What?? for leading me to this little gem! I'm a certifiable cat freak, and really...what could be better that putting stuff on a cat!

First I have to say, I can't even imagine knitting something like this that would truly fit a cat. Secondly, how the hell did this person get it ON the cat without ending up in the hospital with their flesh in tatters?!?

It truly boggles the mind.

Pukety, puke , puke...

yeah, that's what's up here folks. Daughter the Younger has tummy troubles. She's feeling a little better today, but still nowhere near normal. I've been Lysol and Cloroxing everything that doesn't move out of my way under it's own power. I know it's probably viral, and that this will really do no good. It just makes ME feel a little better. If I'm going to be staring down into the business end of a toilet, it's going to be a CLEAN one.

If you come to visit me, and just happen to use the girls' bathroom, this is what you'll see on the soffit above you as you look in the mirror. It's good advice for everyone, don'cha think.

Here I am again.

Benevolent Creator

Saw this one on Rambling's site. Thanky Rambling.