Can I just tell you how much I love my friends???

LL baked me a cake. A REAL cake with her super top secret real icing on top. See the cake here. It's a beautiful, magical thing. Top that off with lasagna - not the kind I make, or would make if I were to make it, but REAL lasagna with noodles, sauce, cheese and lots more cheese. I might just use a jar of sauce, a handful of noodles, and the wrong kinds of cheese. Bam. I'm a regular Julia Child. We went to the home of LL and NGM Sunday afternoon and had so much fun. I'm sure you probably heard my kids if you were listening every so carefully. 

And the Princess helped sing the wonderful happy birthday tune to me at TKD last night. I have to admit, I was reveling in the attention. I love birthdays like a 5 year old. Princess also gave me a ginormous mug for my coffee filled to the brim with......peppermint patties!!! Have you EVER in your lifelong days had a pattie kept cold straight from your freezer?! You have to experience this. 

There were other highlights to my birthday, but probably the best was the surprise that Camden and Benjy had planned for me last Thursday. All week they had been planning this top secret mission to surprise me while Mamaw was in town. So that afternoon they sneaked out, bought a bunch of party decorations with their very own money, and wrapped my surprises for me in birthday crepe paper. When I finally got home that day at 5 p.m., they shouted "SURPRISE!!!!!" Or, in Benjy's language, "Ca-pwise!!!!!" Oh, I was. :) Benjy had me unwrap his gift first - a package of orange and black tea lights. He had been planning to buy me candles all week long. :) Camden's perfect gift was a set of bags to put the fall leaves in. When set in the yard just right, they form a giant spider. We may need to borrow a few leaves to complete this fun little project. I love my boys. They're so special sweet. 

And a humongous thanks to Joel, aka Mamaw. She spent the week here ferrying the boys to school, harvesting from Eaglescout's garden, mowing, doing laundry (and can this lady fold undies!), and just being company for me and the boys. I know we loved her visit and she's welcome any time. Even if she doesn't do the laundry. :)  Thanks, Joel. We miss you.

What a red-letter day!

I turned 40. 

My entire school serenaded me with the happy birthday song this morning.

Wall Street plunged deeper than EVER in the HISTORY OF THE WHOLE ENTIRE WIDE WORLD.

All on my birthday. Don't I feel special.

So I'm reading my usual blogs, my ankle on ice and my back on the heating pad, and I see this. Especially powerful today. 

Grab a kleenex. 

It all started with a teacher.

A teacher who finally did what I could not: Convince Camden that books are good. Books are entertaining. Books are places in which you can get lost. That's what he calls reading now - "getting lost in a book".

And so this teacher has lit a fire in my son that has captured my heart. He reads. All the time. He sets up a class full of stuffed animals (most are elephants, but they're not prejudiced. Some are other species), props himself in my OLD kid-sized rocker, and pretends to be his teacher. 

His favorite genre is historical fiction in the form of the Magic Tree House series. He's a history buff (gets that totally 100 percent from his dad), so there's enough real stuff in these books to grab onto while his imagination takes off. I don't think Elk liked it. He's kissing the blanket here.

Benjy tried hard to be a part of this class of Wild Things. He came downstairs where I was resting my swollen ankle to tell me that Mr. Richert wouldn't let him talk. I told Benjy to set up his own animals and be their teacher in his room. Ding. You could see the light bulb brighten right on top of his head. 
He read Just Me and My Dad to them, almost verbatim from our many, many times reading this book. He wanted desks, so I showed him how Michelle and I used to use books to make desks. (Actually, we made Barbie apartments with our library books.) He set up his little guys behind their new desks, ran to Camden's room to borrow an American flag for the pledge, and sat down with his class to begin the day. 

In the next instant, it was nap time. The guys were put to bed because they're preschoolers of course, and the other Mr. Richert went to sleep. My two little Mr. Richerts taking naps with their students until they return to school tomorrow, students themselves.

I just know I'll regret this in the morning.

It's 11:30 and here I sit blogging. And purely for selfish reasons. I opened up my etsy.com store tonight!!!
If you scroll down a wee bit, you'll see the link to the three little items I have up for sale. I'm so happy to be selling my crafty stuff again. I used to put little scrapbooks and stuff up on ebay, but that place isn't really great for selling hand-crafted goodies. I've been a buyer on Etsy for some time now, and I find boat loads of inspiration just surfing its pages. 

Eaglescout is the one who really encouraged me to try this. He's so awesome like that. (Do you think he wants a cut???)

This week I'm gonna list a rag rug that I am nearly finished making. Then I'll have to prop up my ankle and get to making something else.

OK, there's my spiel. Please buy buy buy my stuff! :) :) :) hehehehe

It's not really so much broken.

It's more like a slight chip. A miniature fracture. 

Come on now, that's not a break.

If you had a broken piece of china, you'd toss it, right?

But if it's just a tiny bit chipped, well, you'd use it. 

You may not serve it to your Aunt Mabel, but you'd use it just the same.

So, it's chipped.

And dang-it, it hurts like mad.

I'm told to baby it for at least a week, ice it, elevate it, put my super cool air cast on it that makes me feel like a storm trooper, and behave. That means no taekwondo. No demo practice. But, daggonit, I will be better by Sept. 27. Yes, indeedly-doo, I will. 

Or I'm not a camo belt.

Right?????

Now that I have this new-fangled camera that can practically take pictures of itself, Benjy has discovered my old and inferior camera. Go ahead, I told him; shoot. Nooooo, not shoot like shoot. I mean shoot like take some pictures. 

The kid's got something going on with his eye. Of his 121 pictures, these were too good to delete. I think my baby has a little gift going on behind the lens.

Last night we delivered a little surprise to Big Sexy for his birthday and enjoyed some cake frosting and ice cream with the Princess and her fun family. Camden and Benjy thought they'd hit the lottery with the Star Wars toys and Legos in Cam and Ryan's rooms. And I had a bit of a break from talking in kid-speak all night. Thanks for having us, Princess. 

And for those of you worrying your little heads off about Eaglescout, here's an update. I asked him to send me pictures of all the devastation that surrounded him. This is what he sent.













That's his vanity at his swanky dank ding dang hotel in San Antonio. On the River Walk. Across from the Alamo. Still feeling sorry for Order of the Arrow Boy?

Well, I do feel a bit of pity for him today now that he's in Houston and must be in his happy hotel by 9 p.m. or risk being arrested for breaking curfew. That'd look pretty bad for an Eagle Scout. And he's been put in charge of the storm center there, so I suppose there's a chance that he's really working hard now. I'd be really concerned if he had nothing to do but stand around and look at his vanity and all those pretty bottles of free shampoo. I hope he brings me some shampoo when he comes home.

And finally, in keeping with the theme of this post, which is themeless, in case you were wondering, I leave you with these shots of my almost-broken ankle.

This injury is from taekwondo but bears no name. Unless I should call it The Box. Yes, I was pretending that I was 12 like Tony in class tonight, and I was trying to keep up with the guys jumping around and being tough, and I pounded my ankle into the mat. I think I left a dent. I know I heard a crack. But I think it was more like a pop. At any rate, it hurts like mad, but I can walk on it. Sort of.  I'm tough like that. Real tough. As you all know.

Poplar Street

OK, so this isn't a street. But it's a house on a street. The street where I spent my formative years whiling away the days with Michelle and our bffs Kim and Karen who lived across the road. It's a tiny street, barely wide enough for two cars to pass and not on the way to anywhere so thru traffic is practically nonexistent. Poplar Street itself is sort of like a mini neighborhood. As kids, this was our playground. We'd wake up in the morning full of plans - jump rope, bike rides back and forth and back and forth (but not down the hill, or else we'd have to push 'em back up), trips across the road to one another's house all the livelong day. It really is the kind of street where you can let your kids play in the road. 

As I grew up and my teeth grew out and my hair got bigger, I played less and less on Poplar Street. Jump rope gave way to band, bikes to cars, and Kim and Karen moved away leaving the echo of their baby brother's big wheel racing down the street. Then I moved away,  on to bigger and better things, I'd said,  some of the giant poplar trees were cut down. A new house appeared along the road. Cars parked on the side regularly. It was more like a parking lot than the playground I remembered. A few families moved to Poplar Street, but their children didn't play on the road. Times changed, I guess. Poplar Street was a simpler place back when Kim, Karen, Michelle and I were trying to figure out what to do with an evening after school. No video games. No DVDs. No computers. Just time to be out with friends playing in the road.

This little trip down memory lane was brought to you today by this post from Dina Wakley who is guest designing for Jenni Bowlin Studios and is hosting a little contest for a new scrapbook kit club called Kenner Road. Somebody somewhere lived on Kenner Road. I'm sure it's a lovely place. Anyway, to kick off the whole kit club, Dina and a whole crew of Kenner Road gals are giving away prizes to some lucky entrant who writes about their hometown street. And I want to win a prize from Kenner Road, and from these gals. And since Eaglescout left today to clean up after Ike, AND my birthday is fast approacing, I figure I deserve a prize. Don't you think I am most deserving? 

Now, I'm off to tear the house down looking for an actual picture of Poplar Street. 

Do you remember where you were when

America

was changed?

I was teaching in my second grade classroom. We had just switched students for reading groups. I had the low group; they're my favorite. We were sitting together on the rug reading the morning message and buzzing about words that ended with -at or something. Deep stuff for 7-year-olds learning to decode English.

Knock at the door. Mrs. Cabanis comes in. Mrs. Richert, will you please come here a moment?

I walk into the hallway, leaving the door open so I can hear my class in case anybody decides to make a break for it. I notice the other second grade teachers standing by their doors, too. My wheels start turning. Tornado drill today? Important staff meeting this afternoon? Did somebody write on the boy's bathroom wall again?

Mrs. Cabanis: There's been an accident. A plane crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. They thought it was just an accident. But then another plane crashed into the south tower. And just now the Pentagon. We don't know anything more. But we wanted you to know. Now, the district wants us to not tell the students. We just wanted the staff to know. We'll have a TV in the lounge so we can see what's going on.

It hit me then. Mrs. Cabanis is on the crisis team. What in the world is happening???

More than a little bewildered I eased back into my classroom and gathered my group back on the carpet. We searched for more -at words, put some periods in the right spots on my letter to the class, and then broke up for reading groups. I saw every group that day. It was a good reading day. 

By lunch time I had tucked Mrs. Cabanis' message into the back of my mind. I dropped my kids off at the cafeteria and made my way across the hall to the lounge. The room was silent, save Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric. Cool, I had always loved Katie. But as I settled into my spot at the table, I could tell this wasn't the Cute Katie Show. The mood was somber. The art teacher was in tears. In the time it takes to open a lunch box, we all realized the magnitude of the news we'd received 2 hours earlier. 

By the time we left the room two hours later, we were all crying. Most of us had children of our own, and we were thinking of them. We wanted to be with our families. Not here. But we had other people's children to take care of. And the district office didn't want us to tell the elementary school kids what had happened. That would be up to the parents. So we put on our happy face, picked our kids up from the cafeteria, and continued on with our day, hunky-dory like. 

That's what I remember most about that day. It was surreal, knowing that somebody hated us so badly that they would kill 2,974 people they'd never even met. And I had to go on about my afternoon in a suburban elementary school pretending that the world was safe, friendly, willing to bend over backwards for every Nintendo-loving, Pokemon card-trading 7-year-old on God's green earth. My job wasn't merely to teach these kids to read, write, and say "sorry" when they hurt a friend. I had to assure them that our world was filled with wonder, beauty, kindness, and love. 

That's still my job. Some days are easier than others. But no day has been more difficult than Sept. 11, 2001.

Thanks be to God for pulling us through the most evil day I've ever seen.

Well, bloggy friends, you asked for a prompt. 

My friend Kristen sent this to my email. I'm too lazy to re-email it, so I shall blog it instead. Thanks Kristen in Delaware!!! I miss the Blaisdell Babes!!!

1. What time did you get up this morning? 5:30
2. Diamonds or pearls? sapphires
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Space Chimps
4. What is your favorite TV show? Burn Notice
5. What do you usually have for breakfast? black coffee and a multi-vitamin
6. What is your middle name? Leighann 
7. What food do you dislike? eggplant 
8. What is your favorite CD at moment? the one I burned from current faves in itunes
9. What kind of car do you drive? the big blue van, a Windstar
10. Favorite sandwich? blt with Eaglescout's garden tomatoes 
11. What characteristics do you despise? Lying, boastfulness, and phoniness, is that a word???? 
12. Favorite item of clothing? pajamas
13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? to bed 
14. Favorite brand of clothing? Eddie Bauer, but only from the warehouse outlet in Columbus, Ohio. Otherwise, I'll take Liz Claiborne and Anne Taylor from the kind lady who sends her used duds to the Goodwill.
15. Where would you retire? The Outer Banks, North Carolina
16. What was your most recent memorable birthday? Turning 38 when Carri brought me a fresh bowl of REAL oatmeal with REAL butter and brown sugar and then a ginormous cake that my whole first grade class presented to me. We had a partay that day!!!
17. Favorite sport to watch? What's a sport??? Do they have special watches for those things??? We're not allowed to wear watches in taedwondo.
18. Furthest place you are sending this? Neptune 
9. Person you expect to send it back first? I expect to see this on the Special Forces blogs first. We've been desperate for a prompt and too lazy to make them up for ourselves.
20. When is your birthday? Sept. 29
21. Are you a morning person or a night person? Night
22. What is your shoe size? 7
23. Pets? Emma Louise Dawn, aka Emmalemmalimabean
24. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us? My anniversary/birthday present from Eaglescout today: it's a Nikon D60 camera! It's solid, black, and a little intimidating. But the auto mode works perfectly for me! It pays to turn 40!
25. What did you want to be when you were little? a vet or an architect. Alas, too much math.
26. How are you today? I was pooped, but then I went to TKD and now I feel happily buzzin with endorphins and grape juice and chocolate Snack Pack pudding.
27. What is your favorite candy? peppermint patties. get the sensation.
28. What is your favorite flower? daisies
29. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? my birthday. I just love birthdays! and LL promised me a cake!!!
0. What is your full name? Wendi Leighann Gabby Windbag Mouse Ears Gertrude Funny Face Suzy Q Chicken Eater Gravy and Biscuit Eater Gibson Richert. The part up until Richert was given to me by Daddy when I was a wee little thing - a new name added each night till it was just too unwieldy to remember. I told my kindergarten teacher, beautiful Miss Ringley, that was my name on the first day of school. Mom, who had been beaming with pride up for her ponytailed kindergartner until that moment, wilted when it slipped out of my mouth in 1.5 seconds flat. 
31. What are you listening to right now? Law and Order SVU, a major rerun 
32. What was the last thing you ate? a taco
33. Do you wish on stars? no, I'm not altogether sure which are stars and which are planets. Don't wanna jinx it with Neptune.
34. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? periwinkle
35. How is the weather right now? Cooling down a bit, fall's coming. :) 
36. The first person you spoke to on the phone today? Eaglescout's mom just a moment ago
37. Favorite soft drink? Diet Rite 
38. Favorite restaurant? Red Star Tavern - ahi tuna - yummo!
39. Real hair color? dishwater brown
40. What was your favorite toy as a child? Barbie, Skipper, PJ, Francie, Superstar Barbie, Suntan Tuesday Taylor, Ballerina Barbie, and 2 Kens. Oh yeah, their camper, Tuesday's penthouse, Barbie's flat, and an assortment of high heeled shoes that poor flat-footed Skipper couldn't wear. 
41. Summer or winter? Winter. Bring on the snow.
43. Chocolate or Vanilla? vanilla. real vanilla
44. Coffee or tea? coffee
45. Do you want your friends to email you back? They can blog it. Everybody should have a blog. Girls like friends with blogs.
46. When was the last time you cried? Monday on my way to school listening to Held by Natalie Grant.
47. What is under your bed? dog hair and suitcases
48. What did you do last night? I took a two-hour nap, then got up, took a bath, read to the boys, and then rested some more. And it was only Tuesday.
49. What are you afraid of? talking to strangers
50. Salty or sweet? mixed together!
51. How many keys on your key ring? 2 - house and car.
52. How many years at your current job? this is my third
53. Favorite day of the week? Thursday - Burn Notice and The Office
54. How many towns have you lived in? 4
55. Do you make friends easily? I think so, but I have to be in a situation where I know I'll see these people again a lot before I really break down and talk.
56. How many people will you send this to? the entire blogosphere
57. How many will respond? time will tell

Yesterday marked 16 years that Eaglescout and I have been married. 16 years of blessings, bliss, and wonderment, and not a little bemusement. 16 years. Wow.

The 16th wedding anniversary is to be marked by silver holloware, apparently. Whatever that is. Silver is a nice color, though, and my personal choice compared to gold. I got ES a silver ipod Nano for the big day. I was pretty darn proud of me for thinking of it since I'm the world's worst gift giver for any holiday that's not preprinted on a calendar. He's been loading tunes all day, somewhere around 947. I think he can listen to his ipod for 3.2 days or something without hearing the same song twice.

I just know you're wondering what ES got me. I am, too. But it's not here yet. It's in a box on the way from someplace. I'm not to open it when it arrives until ES is here. He's so bossy, ya know?

So, what is it about ES that makes him worthy of 16 years?

I'll give you 16 items of interest. This is an abridged version, mind you.

1: ES is my best friend. He was when we first met, both on the rebound from previously failed relationships.  We met at the Roanoke Times where we both worked as editorial assistants. Actually, he owned the paper. Yeah, and the grocery store, and the post office, and the jail. Yeah. Something like that. ES and I hit it off immediately. And he was cute, too. 

2: ES suffers through my cooking with nary a complaint. On our first date he arrived at my tiny apartment in a pick-up truck and whisked me away to the symphony. Seriously. We came back to my tiny apartment - only 3 houses down from where he grew up, no kidding! - and I cooked him spaghetti. I really poured on the hot pepper flakes, totally absorbed in this pick-up-driving, symphony-going, cosmopolitan man. (I just thought cosmopolitan sounded cool. He really wasn't, mind you. He's just the guy next door. In a good way.) The spaghetti was horrible. Actually, the pasta was fine, it was the sauce that was too hot to eat. We were both near tears. And to think he didn't say a word....

3: ES is comfortable in his own skin. This man actually wore brown cowboy boots to our wedding. Yes, with a black rented tux! I wasn't too surprised when Daddy asked me, on the way down the aisle, if I was sure about this. He pointed out the cowboy boots and said ES told him it was a "double dog dare." Yeah, it was. I'd forgotten how he threatened to wear them and I did indeed double dog dare him to. But ES remembered. I loved him even more after that. 

4: ES loves God and is a good, good man.

5: ES can read.

6: Number five is true, you know. ES loves to read. He reads a lot of history books. Stuff I couldn't care less about. Give me the gist of the war and I'm content. But he wants the details. ES is a details man. 

7: ES makes me laugh. He's silly, goofy in fact. He loves the 3 Stooges, need I say more?

8: ES can watch House Hunters with me and never complain. He actually gets into it. And he watches several HGTV shows. I know this because I see him sneaking peeks at the TV. Hehehe. I'm sneaky like that.

9: My husband is so darn nice. He's nice to everyone. He's respectful, caring, gentle. He makes people feel comfortable and happy and important. ES can't stand to watch people suffer undeserved calamities. And this happens a lot in his line of work.   ES has a heart that connects with others. 

10: ES is a budget nazi. I say that with absolute and total love because one day we'll pay off the mortgage. If only I could just grasp the concept of a budget. But that's another post all together.

11: Camden and Benjy have a father who loves them unconditionally. They know that no matter what they've said or done, when the day is spent, Dad is there. He loves them tenderly, assures them that all is right in the world, and without fail, follows through. ES is what a father should be.

12: ES has skills. And you know girls like guys who have skills. He can build a house, fix a toilet, lay real hardwood floors, cook anything, grow a garden, spar in taekwondo, soothe a screaming baby, change a diaper, cook anything, break a board, iron a shirt, win Trivial Pursuit, bike for hours, cook. Oh, you get the picture. The only thing he can't do is run electric wires and nurse a baby. And that's OK by me.

13: ES encourages me. He lifts me up and makes me feel like I can do anything. He and Camden gave me the taekwondo membership for Christmas. I confess that I opened the present - a starched white uniform and gift card - and thought, "there's no way I'll do this. No way on God's green earth." But he was convinced I'd love it, and he believed I could do it. And he was right. I'm a scary black belt wanna-be, that's what I am. And ES knows it and loves that part of me. :)

14: ES doesn't mind that I like to twirl my jahng bong in the back yard. He's cool like that.

15: ES does laundry. And he folds the clothes. And he sometimes remembers to use the dryer sheets.

16: ES really is an Eagle Scout. And an Order of the Arrow person, Vigil Member something or other. He's every bit of what the Boy Scouts teach boys to be when they grow up. ES has grown up to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. And that's only a fraction of why I'm in love with him.

Lookie what Princess and BS brought over for us tonight:

The inside of the card goes like this:

Thanks Princess and BS!

My camera is loaded with pictures, but I'm on the couch and I can't reach my camera. Or the cord for uploading the pix.
And ES isn't on duty tonight to bring it to me. Ah, too bad for you.

So, this will be quick and not as brilliant as you're are accustomed.

Just when I thought I couldn't possibly be more stressed out about this school year, God winked at me and I actually felt PEACE today. From the moment I walked into my room, I knew this year would be OK. And don't ya know, I absolutely LOVED being with my kids today. Not that I don't typically love them. It's just the chemistry this year is different. And today it was still different, but it was good. A good chemistry that will marinate throughout the year and turn into a something-or-other that will be just right in June.

OK. I've decided to reapply for National Board Certification. This is my last year to do it, and if I don't make the cut, then I have to reapply from scratch if I ever wanna do it again. The reapplication process is daunting, but not as much as the original one. So I'll call my pal Emily who reapplied last year and will hear on her status in October. (Yes, it takes a daggone year to do this.) And I'll rack up a charge on the paid-off Visa, and I'll apply myself to reapplying. All while sparring with people in my camo belt, sans socks.

An acrostic for
Y - Y'all
O - oughta
U - uhm, be tired.

I - I
D - did
L - live
E - even
W - when
I - Idlewilde
L - lifted
D - deranged
E - entities.....
all around me.
(then-present company certainly not included)

OK, so that sucked. I'm not exactly a whiz with words.
Not that I need reminders.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

It's been a loooooong week.
A loooooooong week back to school.
And so I'm uninspired.
Even though Camden and Benjy have said cute things, adorable things, and posed for the obligatory first-day-of-school photo, I am too tired to find my camera and upload the pix. Therefore, I'm too tired to blog about anything taking that much thought. Hey, I went to TKD tonight. I have NOTHING left to give. Especially after the square block drill. Talk about a Jimmy moment.

And so, I give you this, for your blogging pleasure. An easy-to-fill-in Four Things topic.
Peace.


Four jobs I've had:
-- Hardee's "Would you like a Big Cookie with that?"
-- Life Guard
-- Editoral Assistant/Staff Writer - Roanoke Times
-- Teacher

Four places I've been on vacation:
-- Cozumel, Mexico
-- Camden, Maine
-- Seattle, Washington
-- Grand Cayman, Wherever

Four of my favorite foods:
-- Snack Pack chocolate pudding
-- ahi tuna from Red Star Brewery
-- birthday cake
-- pasta and fresh parmasan cheese and real butter

Four movies I can watch over and over
(I tend to scoff at ES when he watches a movie more than once...):
-- Gone With the Wind
-- The Full Monty
-- Christmas Story
-- Toy Story 2

Four places I've lived:
-- Norton, Va.
-- Roanoke, Va.
-- Delaware, Oh.
-- Greensburg, Pa.

Four TV shows I love to watch fairly regularly:
-- Burn Notice
-- The Office
-- CSI Miami (I know...bad train wreck...I can't help it.)
-- Law & Order - ALL of them

Four websites I visit daily:
-- Special Forces blogs
-- Pioneer Woman blog
-- Bye Bye Pie blog
-- Claudine Hellmuth (collage artist)

Four places I'd rather be right now:
-- on a tube on the Guadalupe River in Texas
-- on a beach. Any beach.
-- in the south.
-- in bed

Thank you, Princess, for giving me a reason to stay awake for another hour.........

(A) Attached or Single...Attached to Eaglescout since Sept. 5, 1992, Highland Park, Roanoke, Virginia. He was the one in brown cowboy boots. I was ravishingly, breath-takingly beautiful.
(B) Best friend... Eaglescout. 
(C) Cake or pie... It all depends on who makes the cake or pie. If it's cake batter that I make from a box, then I'll happily lick the bowl. If LL makes the cake, I'll eat it. If it's a blackberry pie from anywhere with vanilla bean icecream, then it's mine. So, I can't make a choice here. I'm undecided. Hopeless.
(D) Day of choice... In the summer, I'd have to agree with Princess. Now that school's started, I'd have to pick Friday just for the fact that I can look forward to the weekend.
(E) Essential item... A book. A new crime fiction novel by John Sandford would be prime.
(F) Favorite color... yellow.
(G) Gum or mints... Gum.
(H) Hometown... Norton, Virginia. A happy Mayberry kinda place. Even though I couldn't wait to get out when I was in college, I grew to miss it more and more with each year I've lived farther and farther away from it. :(
(I) Favorite Indulgence... hot cocoa with skim milk and caramel and a brand new book from B&N. Yes, it's 2 things, CTP, but it's 1 when taken as a single entity or experience. One indulgence. They go together. Like PB&J.
(J) January or July... January. Winter is the best time of the year. 2 words of explanation: Snow Days.
(K) Kids... 2 boys, 1 canine
(L) Life isn't complete without... a nap. Oh no, I mean, ES and the younglings.
(M) Marriage date... Sept. 5, 1992
(N) Number of brothers and sisters... 1 sister. Michelle. She passed away on April 9, 2008. But she'll always and forever by my baby sister. 
(O) Oranges or apples... chocolate Snack Pack pudding.
(P) Phobias... Crowds, People, the PUBLIC, HUMANITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
(Q) Quotes... "One time, at band camp............." 

"You'll shoot your eye out."

And something from Austin Powers, I'm sure. I just don't remember what.
(R) Reasons to smile... Having Camden and Benjy BOTH at recess this week when I'm on, of all the unsmiley things, recess duty. I love seeing my boys playing when they don't know I'm watching.
(S) Season of choice... Winter - snow, snow cream, snow storms, snow-covered roads, snow reports, snow days
(T) Tag... You're it!
(U) Unknown fact about me... Well, I'd like to think you'd find it extremely unusual that I was the last person chosen for every single gym team I was on. :(   But, I guess you possibly don't know that I am a National Board Certified Teacher which means that I once knew about what I am talking. I'm praying about the recertification process this year. A long and icky and pricey process, but one I'm feeling led to pursue. hmmmmmmm.
(V) Valentine's Day or not... I really don't care. ES and I tend to forget this holiday in spite of our intense and undying love for one another an all things hearty and chocolate.
(W) Worst habit... gas. Uh, I mean, cracking my knuckles.
(X) X-ray vision or invisibility... Invisibility. Think Harry Potter.
(Y) Your favorite food... Snack Pack chocolate pudding. This month.
(Z) Favorite Zoo animal... elephants. That's Camden's favorite animal.

I wanna be right brained so bad I can taste the haphazardly thrown together banana pudding with no bananas because of poor planning and eaten right out of the bowl because that's what risk takers do.

But, I'm a left brained bore.

Here's what a quiz I took says about me:

Brain Lateralization Test Results

Right Brain (20%) The right hemisphere is the visual, figurative, artistic, and intuitive side of the brain. Left Brain (82%) The left hemisphere is the logical, articulate, assertive, and practical side of the brain

Are You Right or Left Brained?
personality tests by similarminds.com

And here is what it means:

Left brain dominant individuals are more orderly, literal, articulate, and to the point. They are good at understanding directions and anything that is explicit and logical. They can have trouble comprehending emotions and abstract concepts, they can feel lost when things are not clear, doubting anything that is not stated and proven.

Right brain dominant individuals are more visual and intuitive. They are better at summarizing multiple points, picking up on what's not said, visualizing things, and making things up. They can lack attention to detail, directness, organization, and the ability to explain their ideas verbally, leaving them unable to communicate effectively.

Overall you appear to be Left Brain Dominant.

That's like a slap in the face. I wanna be visual and intuitive! I wanna summarize and pick things up and make stuff up that people wanna hear. And for once in my cotton picking life, I want to walk out of my house with making my bed.

It's hard to come up with topics for the blog, ya know? So after ES and I put the boys to bed at 8:00 - did ya hear that??? 8 PM ON THE DOT! - I got my bag of lesson plans and books and copies and letters to parents and homework assignments and Excedrin ready for school tomorrow and sat down to research blog topics. It's 10 o'clock now. Sad how I've chosen to spend my last moments of freedom. And to think I could have been watching the Hooters Swimsuit Pageant/Contest/Scholarship Extravaganza or whatever they call it. It's basically a booty call. Or booby call in this case.

So, there are a lot of websites called MEMEs out there devoted to helping us blog challenged peeps. And in these MEMEs are thousands of things we could be blogging about if we weren't so hopeless as to still be talking about our Fab Five. And Delta Dawn. (And to think I told SC today that she could be Tinnelle to Tightpants' Captain. Oh, I'm completely and totally an ugly duckling in a sea of cool fowl.)

These MEMEs are so proliferous that there's no way I could create a fresh list of blog prompts on a school night. So I'm gonna link to them here. And we can click away and decide what we'd like to blog about. We can make a list if we want. We can even make up some of our own. But since we're pretty much 0 for 2, I figure we need all the help we can get.

Here's what I found:

Daily Meme

Monday morning prompts 

Photographic projects

Surveys and quizzes and polls - oh my!

Questions to answer

Weekly random thought to blog about

There's a lot more out there, if you wanna check. I googled "blog challenge" and "blog topics". But it's a school night for me. sigh. But since you're still awake, I thought I'd leave you with this dose of fun. I'm sure the kids will be into this any day now.

I need a prompt.
Without a reason to post, I'm lost. I'm almost ready to write a haiku. That's getting desperate, don't ya think?
I do have this to offer up, though.
It's hysterical. At least in my dweebish world.
And this is all I've got.
(Well, except an exceptionally runny nose from allergies. Yes, ragweed season is upon us.)

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

I don't know what put this song in my head the other day, but once there, I couldn't think of anything else till I'd downloaded it from itunes and burned it to a CD. Delta Dawn. Worth every penny of the 99 cents I plunked down for it. Er, I guess we don't exactly plunk down change in itunes. More like one-clicked it.

So anyway, as I was saying, I've got this terrific CD with a track of the Helen Reddy belting out Delta Dawn, and I'm listening to it as I drive over the mountain today to school. And honey, let me tell you, I had the window down, the cool breeze blowing on my face, and it was quite a chilly morn so I had the seat warmers on, too, for balance. Balance is important like that. Well, I was singing to the top of my lungs with Helen. I wasn't just a back up singer for her, I was her understudy. The boys weren't with me, so this was OK. I typically don't do my singing in front of people. Even in church. 

And as I was Delta Dawning my heart out, I was having the sweetest flashbacks to the 70s, growing up on Poplar Street with my childhood BFF Kim and her sister Karen and my own sister Michelle. Growing up, we used to play Show. Oh, we'd do little ditties from Donnie and Marie, Sonny and Cher, a few disco tunes from the BeeGees, and even a little Elvis because he was King. And we'd always, always, without fail, sing Delta Dawn. We didn't have a clue what it was about, and of course there were no Friday Night Videos to help us figure it out, but we knew all the words by heart so we sang it A LOT. And to this day, I still know every single word, and I can sing it to you if you give me a lot of money. 

Got a little visit in with SC tonight at the TKD Karate Kids testing. My favorite part of talking to her was when she came up to me and ES totally cracking up. That's all I'm gonna say about that. You'll have to ask her.

I will tell you, however, that Camden passed his testing tonight and earned his red belt. It's so red. Crimson red. A glorious shade of the reddest red I've ever seen. ES and I are so darn proud of our baby. He really wanted this when it came right down to it. Can't you see the pride in ES's face? And the determination on Camden's?

And so, we are a family of two red belts, one yellow belt, and one brown leather belt. Emma has no belt at all. Her clothes fit her perfectly. 

Camden asked me today, "Mom, is the Flagari real?"

"Welllllll, I've never actually seen them," I told him, ducking into the bathroom to think.

"You'll have to ask Dad," I quickly added.

Great day in the morning. He's questioning the Flagari.

Next it'll be the big kahuna, Santa Claus. To be followed by the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, and the Halloween Witch who trades candy for a surprise toy. 

My other baby is growing up.

Months ago I walked in on Eaglescout having a conversation with his boys about the Flagari. 

"When you go to bed at night, the lights go out. The Flagari come out of their little cracks and hidey holes to play with the toys." insert question from Encyclopedia Camden

"Because they don't have toys." insert question from Encyclopedia Camden

"Because they're small little creatures they can't get into toy boxes or into containers or on shelves either, so any toys left on the floor that they can reach they take care of. And they play with them for a while and enjoy them. Because any toy should be taken care of."  (lesson to be learned)

"And because the Flagari love their toys so much and they really do appreciate the fact that they have toys at all, they often take the toys and share them with other children who would enjoy them. So remember, you should always clean your toys off the floor and put them in the toy box if you'd like to see them in the morning."

The kids listened to this bit of nonsense, completely spellbound. 

Except for Encyclopedia Camden. "What do they look like? What do they do? Will they take Star Wars toys? Can we get them back?"

Benjy is so taken with the Flagari that he has begun naming they tiny Ninjas that he wins at Seabase Flagari Guys. And now Camden is wondering if they're even real. I can't say that I blame him. There are so many nights when we go to bed that toys on the floor of the playroom are still there in the morning. And while the toys on the floor do give me fits, I don't bother to pick them up and put them away. That's work. If the Flagari want them, they can have them. Have at it, you little monsters!