Mister SIX

Yippee for Joey who is SIX years old today.
We love you Jo-Jo!

We had a Ben 10 birthday party for him at Zilker Park. If you are not "in the know" Ben 10 is a show on Cartoon Network. Ben is a little boy who can turn into any one of ten aliens. The beauty of this is that it gives the loving parent an almost endless supply of things to buy. But that's another story.... Today we used those ten aliens to make ten birthday games. I remembered to take photos of a couple of them! The names of the aliens are highlighted.

Four Arms/ Three-legged Race

Upgrade-ing their cupcakes

We missed the Zilker Train - twice!
So on the fly, David and I invented this "train game" which was really Crack the Whip.
The train motif was to honor the alien named XLR8.

Joey had a good time, and the guests seemed to as well. We are having pizza for dinner and opening presents. The fun continues.....

The other blog.....

I feel like I'm cheating on Rocket Tots. For years, it has been the little task that, at times, I eagerly poured my thoughts into. Other times, when life gets dull, it nags me like a report I need to write for school.

Then, a new feeling, I started a blog called "Estate Sale Mama" about my hobby. I'm all fired up to post photos of the things I find, and write about eBay. It is so new, so fresh, so easy. But poor old neglected R.T. just sits here. So, here I am, with something not so dull to report, hoping that I appease the Rocket Tot task master:

I'll let you know that David and I had a nice date on Saturday. Our priest at church has a daughter we love, and we asked to have her come babysit/sleepover, then we would drive her to church the following morning. My kids were looking forward to it all week. (of course I did too!)

We went out to the Alamo to see Superbad and I give it a rave review. ALTHOUGH, it is not a film I would actually recommend to many people, a few, yes, but most, no. It is very full of cuss words, and high school boy fixations on sex and booze. But it is by Judd Aptow, who makes the funniest comedies (40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up) and this was funnier than both of those. David and I bought our tickets online, but because we tried to play it cheap and eat at home before we went, we got to the theater right as it started. Not a problem with pre-sold tickets, yet still a problem when there was only one seat on the very back row. The theater accommodated us with folding chairs in the handicap spot. Not comfy but smack in the center, so we did OK. We were probably better off than if we had gotten there 15 minutes earlier.

I did Girl Scout training for five hours (!!!) on Saturday, so that movie was just the raunchy counterpoint to all the Girl Scout goodness I was exposed to.

Now, go check out my other blog.

http://estatesalemama.blogspot.com

I'll try to post here or there semi-frequently.

yippee!

I just got new tennis shoes!

September 11

I completely agree with Leonard Pitts' editorial published yesterday.

stocking up

Sometimes there are little ideas (often of interest only to me) that keep popping into my head that make me think I should write about them in some way. Weird facts about life or what have you. Here is one that I can't believe I'm remembering when I'm actually sitting at the computer.

It seems lately, these last ten years, my brain doesn't work quite right. Take grocery shopping for instance. When I go, which is at least four trips per week, I don't use a shopping list, I rely on my faulty memory. So I cruise the aisles hoping to have the item itself trigger my memory. I will get on a kick where I am so thankful that I remembered, let's say, MAYONAISE because I know we were very low and I'd hate to run out. Well, there are about 3 big jars of mayonaise in my pantry right now. There are 4 1/2 bottles of dish soap under the sink. For a while it was margerine. For a while eggs. David says nothing, but keeps storing away my mistakes as though I'm stocking a bomb shelter.

The one item that doesn't worry me is my toilet paper hoarding. I swear I didn't dream this, but when we lived in Seattle, there was all that fighting about the spotted owl and logging. I clearly remember hearing a story on the radio that the loggers would protest by cornering the market on toilet paper to teach us all a lesson about the importance of paper products that their logging provides. Ever since then I hoard TP. When we get down to 6 rolls, I start to get a little worried.

Anyway, that is a strange fact about Kathy that I'll bet you didn't know until just now.

what's up

Boring stuff to report. I'm starting to jog daily... actually, I've been doing it for a month. I'm up to walking two blocks and then jogging every third which is more than I did when I started.

The kids are loving school. They dig into homework without problems. They aren't yet griping about the repetitious lunches I invariably make.

I'm polishing up my resume. Getting ready to apply for a couple of jobs. Got one Architecture job in the back pocket, I think. Not sure if it's a good fit, project wise, but I would have flexible hours which is important at this stage. And it is not computer system research which is the last real "job" I had.... it kicked my bootie.

Did the photo albums - Huge Achievement! -

House was very clean, but not so much anymore. Our life is just messy.

I guess that's it.

I'm going to make you jealous (if you are a mom anyway...)

I just finished putting all my photos into photo albums.

First Day of School Photos

Tomorrow, three Bryker Woods students!

I wrote an email to a friend recently, and I did such a good job of describing the kids' teachers I thought I'd just copy that and post it here. (Friend: hope you don't mind!) Anyway, here is what we have in store for tomorrow. The biggest change is that I'm no longer the mother of a pre-schooler. Now they all attend Bryker Woods. I guess this means I'm not the same kind of a stay at home mom, and very shortly I'll be a part time working mom again. One door closes and another opens....... here's the copied info:


Yes, Emma, my oldest, has a new teacher. But even that teacher is known to us, since her daughter is one of my Girl Scouts and a member of Emma's grade at school. So we know her as a fellow "Mom" at the moment. I've heard wonderful things about her as a teacher. I had a friend who was a clerk in the office and she said Mrs. Spain was the only teacher who never sent kids to the office, she takes care of all the discipline in her room. Impressive....

Max, 3rd grader, will have a lady we've had with Emma two years ago. She is about a year or two from retirement and a very impressive teacher. She gives them each hugs at the end of the day as they leave the room. She asks them about their day, and what they'll be working on that night for homework. It takes almost 20 minutes to get the whole class outside after the bell rings. Her students are "her babies" for the year, and she loves them. Great teacher.

Joey's Kindergarten teacher is a family friend. When Emma was in her class 4 years ago, I volunteered to be a reader on Fridays. Joey was a one year old then, and she would take him to the teacher's lounge for the half hour. When I got him back, he would have cookie crumbs and strawberry juice on his shirt, and lipstick kisses around his cheeks. She even offered to babysit Joey when the other four of us went to movies and she and Joey were special friends... she was like an aunt to him. Now she is teaching him. She will have to train him not to dig through her desk drawers for candy. I asked if she would prefer not to have him be a student, but she is very excited to teach him. She is only a year or two from retirement as well.

We live about three blocks down the street from the school. My husband attended it as a kid. So that is another good thing, we can all walk to school, and actually, I may let the kids walk home by themselves later in the year.

Kathy's Last Temptation

OK, so who's got Kathy's number?
Randall's, that's who!

Not only do I shop there once a day, sometimes more.
Not only do they take more and more of my money each month.
Now they have developed the one impulse purchase that I simply couldn't resist.

I just went ahead and grabbed them and kept on walking.
The oddly hued, over-bright flowers. No way they are really this color, but they were like catnip to me.

Had to have them,
and had just the perfect vase for them.
Now washing the dishes isn't too bad.

Museum Tragedy...

I was missing the cavemen at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History so much that I wrote an email when we got home. I asked the Curator what happened to my all time favorite representation of prehistoric surgery.

This was the disturbing response:

Dear Kathy,

When we dismantled the History of Medicine exhibit, we gave it to the UNT Health Science Center. They were storing it and planned to install it in a new building. Unfortunately, the Tindell Warehouse burned down and the exhibit was lost. I have attached a photo of the cavemen and they are indeed dusty.

Best wishes,
Jim Diffily

Cowtown Vacation

What do you do when you have a couple weeks of Summer Vacation left, the need for a change of scenery, but little cash or energy for a glamorous trip?

Head to Fort Worth!


Stay out of the street when the steer pass by, they might sweat on you.


The kids are old enough now that we decided to do some of the "touristy" stuff on this trip to Gramma and Grandad's. So the first day, we went down to the Stockyards to see the cattle drive. The staff wanders up and down the street before the longhorns, giving us all warnings about standing away from the street. Good thing, because those steer looked mighty feisty in the mid morning heatwave. Actually, it was kind of fun, and we went to the gunslinger show and the Cowboy museum afterwards.

Our wonderful hosts

Where is Santa spending August? At the Gunslinger show!

David warned me to keep my hand off this guy's piece

From there, we made was our second visit to the outstanding new museum in Fort Worth, The Modern.



They had a neat show going on that gave all of us lots to talk about. The permanent exhibit had the ladder to the sky that we all loved.



We stayed in Cowtown for four days, and had time for a visit to the Museum of Science and History. David and the kids took in the Star Wars exhibit, and I spent time in the "Attic" exhibit. They are going to pack up the collection during construction of the new, bigger and better museum. So the attic exhibit pulled out old, retired items that I was familiar with from my yearly field trips as a student in the FWISD.

Mighty dinosaur, where are the Cavemen performing brain surgery? Did you eat them?



The kids loved the Water Gardens, but it did get quite warm..... like Hades.

And we had lots of cousin time with Alex and Grace, and my cousin Amy and her baby Anna and my aunt Shorty. I got to see Missy's pretty new house. And we got to shoot bb and pellet guns, make things in the woodshop, watch very good movies, play dominoes, and hang out and relax.


Thanks Mom and Dad!

beautiful poem

I went to a beautiful memorial service yesterday. On the back of the pew sheet, there was a poem printed that I love. I had seen it in the past, and was actually trying to find it again just a few weeks ago without success.

It is by Henry Van Dyke

Gone From My Sight

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone"

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

And that is dying...

woo hoo

Found this great new site called simpsonizeme.com, and you can see how David and I turned out.

sometimes you just get lucky

http://plaidstallions.blogspot.com

swamp thing

Yesterday was the first time I saw the ground immediately turn to mush right when the rain started.

I'm on the email list for the Soup Peddler (souppeddler.com), and even though I've yet to place my first order I L-O-V-E the little quirky letter he writes when he emails out that week's menu. This week he summed up perfectly the state of Austin after our endless rain. He writes:

"Greetings from soggy South Austin, where front lawns resemble bright green spreads of squishy tundra tussock instead of the crunchy, desiccated fire ant pits that they normally should be. We feel at least partially at fault because of our ceaseless prayers for soup weather... perhaps we have inadvertently bollixed up the weather machinery up there. Alas."

Even if you don't live in Austin, his mailing list is well worth the time it takes to read it.

I'm not sure if we will get more rain today. Probably so....

Sorry no posts lately....

Haiku 1

now, daily thunder
mud in the van endless rain
mosquitos eat us


Haiku 2

Dad's house is for rent
paint it clean it fix it quick
many calls... priced low?


Haiku 3

Stuffy head, sore throat
cranky mom, no cleaning, but...
...read Harry Potter!


Haiku 4

Art camp, gym camp, house
This week was much busier
than rest of summer


Haiku 5

Read Elisa's blog
Read Julie's and Christi's too
I'm not keeping up!


Haiku 6

Enjoy life now
slurpees, swimming, sleep in late
sweet summer kids free

hot mamas

wonderful dinner party last night....
here are the mamas and not-so-little babies

we decided it would be a good idea to get together for girls weekends more often than once a year... so if I can just hold out until december......

thanks Julie Kay for being a great host.

floating

We are pool and house sitting for our neighbors, and tonight we went over for a swim after our late dinner.... I felt guilty having so much fun, but it was very peaceful floating on my back and looking at the stars.

4th of July Report

Hope you had a fun 4th.

Last night, as a fireworks afficianado, I can say that Austin's fireworks were breathtaking. Maybe it was the backdrop of rain clouds that set off the colors of the fireworks. Maybe it was the cool (!!) summer breeze that was blowing on us. Maybe it was because we left the house after 9pm, drove to Austin High School parking lot and had the easiest (zero minute) wait to see the show. Maybe it was that my kids are all old enough to say, "that was my favorite" after every single one. Maybe it was because we had just finished a swim party and bar-b-q at a wonderful neighbor's house. Maybe we were all still glowing from the parade around Bryker Woods earlier in the morning, when I discovered once again that our aging neighborhood has lots of young families moving in with tons of little kids.

Whatever the reason, it was a wonderful 4th for us.