Thursday, January 31, 2008

Wham! Rap

My sister posted the Wham! Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go video, which, admittedly, is SLIGHTLY embarrassing for George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, compared to this. Hello. If you've ever watched some vintage Take That videos, I'm not sure this even compares. I read on a comment board once where this woman said she didn't know whether to be horrified or amused. This is one of those "hormusing" examples if I ever saw one. When Wham! was big, I LOVED Andrew Ridgeley, not realizing that George Michael, the singer/songwriter, was the gay one anyway. I know I've had a few of those "I wish I could reach back in time and slap myself for doing this" incidents, although I can't speak for the guys. Maybe they think their brief foray into rap wasn't so bad... You be the judge.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Whose Idea Was This?

Soccer in January. Enough said.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Legitimate Black Eye


Alex got kneed in the eye at soccer the other night. I wish we'd have taken a picture the next day, but I was pretty sure she'd never let me, so I never asked. Last night I was kind of teasing her and I said, How often are you ever going to have a legitimate black eye, which if you think about it, is probably not very often. So she let me take the picture. It sort of just looks like eye makeup on one eye, but it was actually pretty purple the day before. She even had kids ask her why she put makeup on only one eye. I don't know what I'll do if I start seeing kids running around with makeup on only one eye. Oh, she also got her finger jammed the same night and there is a black line on there also, but the picture didn't turn out. Also, that's Tugger, who doesn't have a black eye, but just loves her some Alex...

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Vomitorium

So the other night when I ran upstairs to check on Samantha to discover that she had puked all over the down comforter on my bed, her pajamas, my floor, Eric's shirt, then some on the bathroom floor as we ran to the toilet, then some more on the back of the toilet seat, I remember thinking, "This place is like a vomitorium."

A vomitorium (plural: vomitoria) is a passage situated below or behind a tier of seats in an amphitheatre, through which crowds can "spew out" at the end of a performance. A commonly held, but false, belief is that Ancient Romans designated spaces called vomitoria for the purpose of actual vomiting, as part of a binge and purge cycle.

So you see, my bedroom/bathroom was actually NOTHING like a real vomitorium. My room was more like a room covered in vomit.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

I.Could.Pee.

This is hysterical. I could watch seven minutes of Jerry doing the T.C. laugh, except that I WOULD pee myself.

I found this while searching stories on the death of Heath Ledger. Sad.

Even though I think this screws up the margins, I have to post it. It's too funny.

Heredity

So every now and then, your child may do something that causes you to think, Hm, she must have gotten that particular talent/skill/habit/malady from me/her dad/grandpa, etc. Well, I discovered last night that Samantha has gotten my out of control coughing (at night) that I grew up with. To lay a little background, I used to cough so much at night, my mom (sorry for this, Mom) used to give me cough syrup followed by a shot of Everclear followed by a cracker chaser. I always joke that it wasn't till I was in college that I learned a cracker is not a proper chaser for a shot of alcohol. You should use, instead, either a swig of beer or juice or pop, something that goes down quickly, not a saltine that you have to chew up and try and swallow, all the while gagging on the 100 proof Everclear your mother has just given you whilst you bathed. Since I know there's no chance CPS can come and take me away, since I no longer live with my mother, I feel like it's okay to tell this story. It was a different time back then. We always laugh about how my mother smoked and drank while she was pregnant. Live and learn. So a shot of Everclear was not probably all that shocking.

Anyway, Samantha has had an AWFUL cold. It's possible it might even have been the flu, although I grew up believing there had to be vomit for it to be the "flu". But I kept her home from school on Friday because she was a little warm, and Monday was MLK Jr. Day (which, for you people in Montana who don't acknowledge it, is the day the rest of the nation celebrates Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday). So I'm thinking it's all good for school on Tuesday. She went to bed at 8:30 and by 9:30, I knew there might be a coughing issue. Finally, my husband went to sleep in the guest bedroom and I went up to sleep with Samantha. She had actually already had a shot of Nyquil, but I thought, Hey, my mom used to give me cough syrup AND Everclear, so I'm thinking another shot of Nyquil might not hurt. Samantha loves medicine, also, so she popped right up for the Nyquil. I had to run downstairs to finish up some laundry and when I got back, she had coughed herself into puking. If you know her history, I'm actually shocked that she hadn't thrown up WAY earlier. She's got a horrid gag reflex (also from me), and it was not uncommon for her to be nervous about something at daycare and to throw up about it. The lady who watched her, Kimberley, wouldn't even bother calling me to tell me she threw up. She'd just tell me when I picked her up at the end of the day.

Anyway, she finally quit coughing around 2:00 a.m., thus allowing me to sleep as well. This morning I thought to myself, there has to be some new methods for dealing with coughing somewhere. I know from personal experience that cough syrup is a scam. The best thing is to knock yourself OUT. But I thought I'd check out some alternatives. There was one website that suggested rubbing her chest and back with warmed coconut oil or try a necklace of garlic. No lie, a necklace of garlic. And it doesn't even give any solid reasoning, just that garlic is good for so many things, you might try this. I think I'll stick with the Nyquil, but if I end up trying the Everclear, I won't be writing about it till she's 18.

UPDATE: My mother read this entry and called me demanding that I change it to read that it was a SPOONFUL of Everclear, not a SHOT. So much better. I still love you, though, Mom... For those of you outside of Montana who have never heard of Everclear, it's 100 proof alcohol that tastes somewhat like I'd imagine fingernail polish remover might taste. Chase it with a cracker!

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Wahoo

80 words

Touch Typing online

Typing Test

So now every time I log on to work on my blog, I take the typing test. I am obsessed. I THOUGHT I typed a lot faster than that. 79 is the most I've ever gotten. It's always above 70, but I think 76 was the closest I've come since then. Man, what a downer. And now I have to spend the whole day typing...

Friday, January 18, 2008

Typing Test

79 words

Touch Typing online

Friday

Well, we decided to keep Samantha home from school today. Her cheeks are rosy and she's warm, plus she has almost lost her voice. So she's laying in my bed upstairs watching my new TV. Every now and then she calls me to "come up here", which due to my back situation, is not easy. So I usually yell back, "Are you sure you need me up there?" Yes. So I get up and stretch and try to stand upright for a minute or two, then trudge up the stairs. When I got to the top the first time, I had to stay for a few hands of Crazy Eights. The second time the urgency was to ask me if, when I go to the store around noon for root beer float supplies, I would also get whipped cream for the top of the root beer floats. Serious stuff. I asked her how she thought the party that they are probably having at school because she is gone is going. She didn't buy it. She knows me too well.

I am working on a six and a half hour hearing. The hard part is getting it stroked in on my machine. I will be working diligently, and the next thing I know, I'll be on some website somewhere with no idea how I got there or why I'm not working anymore. I must have multiple personality disorder, which seems to be going around, i.e., Britney "Batshit Crazy" Spears. I hate the people who say it's all the paparazzi's fault, that they hound her too much. Maybe she could stay home sometime instead of going out every single day, making the rounds to all the gas stations and fast food joints. I'm just saying.

My sister got me turned on to this blog, which rules. She also does a cooking site, and everything she cooks looks WONDERFUL. I'm going to try two of her recipes next week. I'm also going to make some cookies that she posted directions to tonight.


Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Rethinking the Accent

Now that Britney "Batshit Crazy" Spears is running all over town causing her usual havoc, but doing it with a British accent, I'm kind of rethinking my resolution.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Back Pain

So almost exactly a year ago, I started working out at Curves. Up until then, I had had chronic back pain for about two years. It was, I'm sure, a result of my job and carrying all my gear all the time the same way. I always carried my stuff hanging off my right shoulder, so to compensate and so my stuff wouldn't slide off, I always leaned toward the left. The marshalls in my building used to taunt me that I'd have back pain when I was older. Fine. Done. It started one year on the way to Montana when I rode the whole way in the back of the van. It went off and on for a couple of years until, like I mentioned, it became pretty much every day for a year or so. Then I joined Curves and the pain was gone in a month. So I've been back-pain free for a year. Until Sunday. I think I sort of started aggravating it a month ago when I had a cold and started sleeping on two pillows, I'm sure at least 8 inches off the mattress. After my cold was gone, I kept doing it. I noticed last week that a couple of times I'd wake up and feel a little something in my back. But I ignored it. Until Sunday. I was eating breakfast with Samantha and reached for something and that was all she wrote. It's loads better already, but still painful. It's like this is how my thinking in my brain would look if you were to write it all down:

MY BACK IS KILLING ME.

let's see, what do I need to get done again? oh yeah, that one, um transcript that was due, when was it December? oh, that's funny, I said December and I meant January. what was I, um, ah, thinking about again? oh, yeah, that Steinberg transcript that -- hi kitty, kitty, what are you doing in -- hey where did I put my phone, oh, right here, um, in front of me. what was I thinking again? oh, doesn't Mr. Maring owe my money? where did my phone go? oh, um, right here. what was I going to do today? oh, yeah, some work, wasn't it?

So you see, it's really hard to CONCENTRATE on anything but my pain. So why shouldn't I spend the whole morning in bed, is my question to you? I'd do a fancy poll like my sister does, but I don't know, um, how to.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Persuasion



Masterpiece Theater ran a new version of the movie Persuasion last night, the first movie in their Jane Austen series. While I loved the first movie version of Persuasion, I LOVED this version. This is definitely a movie I will watch over and over and BAWL. See, I rarely cry the first time I see a movie, but after watching it over and over (i.e., The Sound of Music), I will know what's coming and cry and cry. I would NEVER go to watch S of M in a theater nowadays, what with Captain von Trapp singing Edelweiss at the music festival and all. I had a few minor complaints about this version of Persuasion, one being the ending. If I remember correctly, in the previous version, Ann and Wentworth decide to be together, but no one finds out about it until a family dinner that evening when her creepy cousin tries to tell everyone she is marrying him, only to have Ann announce she is going to marry Wentworth. That was a huge payoff, to see the looks on people's faces who thought she was just a spinster and only good for babysitting or watching sickly relatives while the younger girls get to go socialize to find a husband. It is just shocking how badly Ann is treated by all these clueless people who persuaded her not to marry Wentworth eight years ago because he had no money and no title, but now that he's back with money, he's a huge catch and she's a spinster. The only thing wrong with this clip is it doesn't convey how heartbreaking the first 45 minutes of the movie are. It seems like there is NO HOPE for Ann, and everyone loves Wentworth. And Rupert Penry-Jones as Wentworth, hubba-hubba. I first saw him a few years ago on MI-5. He took over for Matthew Macfayden (who, by the way, played Darcy in the Keira Knightly version of P&P). I know some people (Jana) preferred MM on MI-5, but I love Rupert. Every Sunday night on Masterpiece they'll be showing a new Jane Austen, except for P&P which will be the definitive version with another of my top five British actors, Colin Firth. With Jane Austen around, who needs writers?

Friday, January 11, 2008

Kindergarten Pictures



Since I mentioned Sam's kindergarten picture in an earlier post, I thought I might want to show you what I was talking about. Now see if you can pick out which one is Sam... The weird thing is that Alex used to wear her hair like that all the time, but Sam never does. I just put her hair up like that because I thought it might stay nice for the picture. I didn't even realize they are almost the same picture until I was putting Sam's in our big white picture book and happened to glance back at Alex's. Cue creepy music.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

New Year's Resolution

The other day I was at Curves, and we have this monthly goals board now, where you write your resolutions and once they're achieved (monthly), you get to move the post-it to the Achieved board. I know most people were submitting their fitness and health goals, but keeping up with my blog is also one of my goals, so I included that as well. I was talking to my sister later, and I said that I wondered how weird people would think I was if I put one of my resolutions is to perfect my fake British accent. See, it's not your typical resolution, and I think it would be totally cool to be able to pull that out and use it whenever you want. Why can't it be my resolution? Anyway, this is one of my new favorite songs, and when you're singing along in your car, you can totally do the accent.

Monday, January 7, 2008

My Girls

Lately, both of my girls have really started being particular about how they look in pictures. Samantha has decided (after her school picture experience, which is cute, but she did smile kind of funky) not to show her teeth any more when she smiles. Alex panicked three or four times over Christmas vacation because we were wanting pictures and "her hair hadn't been straightened". So even though I could possibly be in real trouble for doing this, this is how much fun the girls had the day they finally got to sled in Montana. I just love these pictures!


I have to give my sister credit for these pictures -- she's become the queen!

Sunday, January 6, 2008

The Summit

So I finished Everest: Beyond the Limit the other day. I was actually glued to the TV for the second to the last episode, and I couldn't imagine how the last episode would top it. Everyone in the group managed to summit, but the DRAMA. One guy, who had been kind of a problem, always doing things his way, which was usually LATE and at his own speed, actually BROKE HIS HAND on the way up, IN TWO PLACES. So he decides he absolutely has to continue on to reach the summit. The main issue is (as the voice-over guy has told us time and time again) that once you reach the summit, you are only halfway there. Just because you reached it alive, doesn't mean you automatically get to live. Anyway, this guy made it back down with the help of the guides and the next episode had the asthmatic and this 71-year-old Japanese guy summiting also. I figured they probably might not be showing this stuff if one of these guys actually died, but maybe they would. They showed other climbers who had died. Everyone had to actually pass a couple of bodies on the way, and the camera showed one over and over. This was a totally exciting series, which also wasn't too long. I may actually look into renting the first season, and I'll definitely be watching the third.

Friday, January 4, 2008

Windy? Ah, YES ...

So my sister's blog has the local weather on it as a page element on the side, which I think is totally cool. She's been trying to tell me how to add the weather to my blog, but here's the problem I have with that (other than the fact that I've been unable to figure it out). The Buckley weather on WeatherBug comes from a station at Bonney Lake High School, which is at least ten miles away. So this morning, the wind has blown over my FULL garbage cans and the lids are nowhere to be seen. The Buckley weather on WeatherBug says that the wind is 2 miles per hour. The local weather on the WeatherChannel.com site says it's gusting to 19 miles an hour. I'm no sort of wind expert, but if you ask me, I'd say 35 or so, gusting even higher. I had to run out of the house and gather the garbage cans after they picked up the garbage for fear I'd lose them, also. So until they put a windometer right outside my house, I don't think I'll bother posting the weather on my blog.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Back to School

So it was back to school today for three of the Fiedlers, and back to working at home all by myself, with an occasional appearance by one or both of our cats, Tonks and Tugger, just to remind me that they don't care that I'm here and actually don't need me at all, except that they can't reach the bag of cat food and don't like to use the litter box unless it's relatively clean. Alex called to let me know she forgot her gym uniform, so I had to race Samantha out of here early to drop it by her school. Then I had to again teach my kindergartener that no, she can't stay home with me anymore and that she will be attending school an average of five days a week, except for summer, for at least the next 12 or so years.

I honestly don't understand this little power struggle thing Samantha has started pulling on me the last few months. It goes something like this. Eric will ask if it's okay if the Grahams and the Meaghers come over on Saturday to watch the Seahawks. Both of these families have kids that Sam has grown up with, albeit mostly boys. I told him that yes, that would be fine, but I HAVE to go to Alex's soccer scrimmage, so he'll be on his own, with Samantha, until that's over. So approximately an hour after overhearing this exchange between me and her dad, she starts in. She'll come up behind me and almost whisper to me, "I really want to go watch Alex's scrimmage," which is complete bull. It will most likely be raining, if not pouring, and windy as hell, this being winter in Washington and Buckley. Since we've done this so many times lately, I immediately snap. "Don't be ridiculous. I don't even want to go to the scrimmage. It's going to suck and be really cold. You're staying home with dad. All the kids will want to see you, and you need to stay here." About an hour later, same thing. After three or four hours, I really have to hold myself back. I asked her if she was planning on worrying about this until Saturday, in which case she will for sure have given herself a huge stomach ache. I KNOW that she will end up having a blast with all the kids here. She's been pulling this same thing for months. Basketball, she doesn't want to play; Emma's house, she doesn't want to go; New Year's with her cousin, she'd rather stay home. But I make her go and then have to drag her home later when she doesn't want to leave. I think she thinks some people make her uncomfortable, but they really don't once she's there and relaxed.