good morning

Tristan woke us up with "MAMA! I've got to pee, NOW!" at 7 this morning and Jon jumped out of bed to take care of him. As I lay in bed, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes for a half hour, my sweet husband:

did two loads of laundry
washed dishes
baked biscuits for breakfast

How lucky am I?

I've found a few new blogs to read, linked in my sidebar. My current favorite is WWTDD?; definate fluff value. It has some really funny posts (case in point), but you've seriously got to watch the Hasselhoff video linked in this post. Your life won't be complete until you see it.

What the heck is up with those daschunds?

week end

The kids have both shot up in size over the past few weeks. Tristan had the first major growth spurt I've noticed since he was about a year old: he's suddenly outgrown his 3T pants and has shot up to 35 lbs (up from 32 just three weeks ago). Eleanor's just turned 9 months old (ack!) and is up to 17.5; she'll be needing a new carseat quite soon.

We went and checked out a Mother's Day Out program and a Pre-K earlier this week...the MDO was not very engaging and the Pre-K was too structured for what he can handle right now. He really wants to go to "school", but he's not interested in the sitting down and learning part. I'm going to look into other MDOs.

Happy 250th to Mozart. We were listening to his Serenade #6 on the way to pick up Jon last night. Tristan noticed that there were violins playing, like Papa's. Then we had a little exchange.

Tristan: Mama, is that guitar?
Me: No, honey.
(pause)
Tristan: It would be better if they put guitars in it.

Natural born critic :)

tuesday

The GRE went decently well this morning. I got a 1110; I needed a 1000 for my program. Yay! I'm not incredibly pleased, but Jon assures me that it's a really good score. Hope so. I wasn't too happy that they put the essay section first, which I didn't expect, so I didn't have a chance to "warm up". I totally blanked on one of the essays and ended up talking about Hitler, lol (history major joke; talking about Hitler's nearly always a cop-out). Did fairly well on the other essay, did great on verbal, ok on math. I left for the test before the kiddos woke up and got home a little after 10, which was really nice since I didn't have to spend the day worrying about it.

Now on to try to solicit some recommendations and my application will be good to go...

jawdrop

This is the best pro-homebirth argument I think I've ever read.

Oh. My. Gosh.

end o' the week

I went grocery shopping this morning and I think I've passed a milestone---I got my first item ever for free after combining a coupon with a sale. Woo! My grandmother gave me her old Sunday coupons earlier this week and I clipped a ton of them. Kroger had 'I Can't Believe it's Not Butter' margarine--regularly $1.99--on sale 10 for $10; I had a coupon for $.50 off, they doubled it for another $.50 off, so I got it for free. It's funny how excited I got about that.

thursday

I'm not tagged but I'm a sucker for memes.

THE FOUR THINGS MEME

Four Jobs I've Had
1. cook at Pizza Hut
2. assistant coordinator for Japanese exchange students
3. volunteer for grassroots peace activism organization
4. history department office girl

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over
1. Brazil
2. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
3. The Princess Bride
4. The Red Violin

Four Places I've Lived
1. Omaha, Nebraska
2. Columbia, Missouri
3. Independence, Missouri
4. LR, AR

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch
1. Grey's Anatomy
2. Daily Show
3. Desperate Housewives
4. Knitty Gritty

Four Places I've Been on Vacation
1. Playa del Carmen, Mexico
2. Venice, Italy
3. Berchtesgaden, Germany
4. Prague, Czech Republic

Four Blogs You Visit Daily
1. see
2. my
3. sidebar
4. <--- over there

Four of Your Favorite Foods
1. salad with eggs and ranch dressing
2. corn chowder
3. fried summer squash
4. Zatarans Blackened Chicken Alfredo (microwave meal *blush*)

Four Places You'd Rather Be
1. on vacation with the family in Montreal
2. ...in New York City
3. ...in Bayern
4. ...in Denver

Four Musical Artists You Love
1. Leonard Cohen
2. Lou Reed
3. Philip Glass
4. John Lennon

Four Vehicles I've Owned
1. 1999 Saturn SW2
2. nameless matchbox car #1
3. ...#2
4. ...#3

Four taggees
1. Jaime
2. Roxi
3. Jon
4. Julie

gre

The GRE is the Graduate Record Examination, the test required for entry into most graduate programs. I'm applying for entry into a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology program. If I make it in, I'll be starting next Fall. The program should take two years, so I'd graduate a few months before Tristan is set to enter kindergarten. I emailed the admissions director, who told me that to be competitive, I generally need to get a combined score of 1000. Which means, if I do well on the verbal sections (which I likely will), I might still get if I don't do so well in the math (which I'm worried about). So that's good news.

eeek

Bright and early next Tuesday morning, I will be taking the GRE.

Oh crapcrapcrapcrapcrap...

dreary day

Just a sleepy, cloudy day here. Tristan was delighted that it rained yesterday so that he could use his Bob the Builder umbrella that his Aunt Anne gave him. Today it's kind of chilly...maybe I will get around to figuring out what to do about some of our draftiness.

We may end up doing something about the bathroom before we'd planned to. The cold water faucet for the tub just decided to quit working...I was able to rig it to work, but now taking a shower involves a vice grips. Tristan has also been asking to take a bath; he got spoiled when we stayed in a hotel in Shreveport. For now, he does understand, though. I do think I'm going to be calling around for various estimates this week. I am kind of excited by the possibility of DIY'ing part of it, but I definately don't want to get in over my head.

After playing on his road mat with his Oma last Friday, Tristan has decided that he has a new favorite game: "car aka-dent!" He assigns his playmate a truck or car, takes one for himself, and chases his prey around the mat, mercilessly running into them repeatedly while yelling, "Car aka-dent! Car aka-dent!" If his police car or fire engine is brought in to break things up, it is subjected to the same rough treatment with raucous laughter.

Geez, who'd have thought that a boy would be so...boyish?

eid mubarak!

Happy Eid ul-Adha to all the Muslims out there! For the rest of you, i.e. everyone who reads my blog except for Jon, here's a brief explanation of the celebration.

I'm cooking bean soup from ---gasp!--- dried beans for the first time in my life. I loooove my new crockpot! The beans are in there simmering along with cabbage, onion, and turkey sausage. It smells really yummy.

We've implimented a cash-only grocery budget and it's really working quite well. My goal is to keep main meals under $5 for the four of us and I'm doing pretty good. Last night's---garlic spinach pizza and salad---was under $3. Once you start counting every penny, though, it's easy to get irked when you see substantial mark-ups. I went to a grocery store in the "bad part" of town yesterday, which I expected to have similar or lower prices than the normal one I go to. Nope, prices were, on average, 30-50% higher. Geez.

Oooh, and I have a good deal alert for the mamas out there. I dropped by a Dollar Tree this afternoon and they had Hanes sweatshirts in sizes starting at xs (4/5). I picked up a couple...I'm generally curbing my desire to buy ahead for clothing, but you can't beat a $1 sweatshirt. I got a navy one and a black one that should last Tristan for the next two winters; they had several floral designs as well, but at my store, they were only in larger sizes.

latest from the onion

No wonder wolves have been known occasionally to attack humans—you're a bunch of ungrateful bastards.

We're Sick and Tired of Raising your Young

lest you forget the true meaning of christmas...

The Kneeling Santa Nativity Set

Does this shock and disgust anyone else as much as it does me?

friday

I got a crock pot from my great aunt and uncle and tried it out a couple of days ago. I made a yummy and frugal split pea and barley soup (cost just over $2 for a pot big enough for all of us). Ellie ate almost as much as Tristan did of the leftovers tonight. The first food that really clicked with him was garlic mashed potatoes; I think Ellie's is split pea and barley soup.

We all went to Jumah today and had a nice time. Tristan's getting more used to it. Afterwards, Tristan and Jon walked over to the neighboring Islamic school and had a look around. We'd met one of the teachers at the dinner party we went to a few weeks ago and their program sounds really good---very small classes, follow state academic curricula, even the very young are quickly speaking good Arabic, etc. In any case, Tristan was really excited about the school and enjoyed looking around. He wants to go back to check it out; he actually insisted, "now, mama, NOW!", but I don't think we'll make it again til sometime next week. I'd like to see it for myself.

Our neighbor's pit bull puppy was roaming around loose all day, collar-less and alone, while they were at work. I was tempted to call the animal shelter, but they'd just kill the poor thing. Whenever we went outside, it would jump up and run over, eager for any kind of attention; even tried to get in our door after us. Neglecting pit puppies seems like our neighbors are seems like one sure way to make them live up to their breed's reputation.

"what, me worry?"

Bush could bypass new torture ban

After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a ''signing statement" -- an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law -- declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said.

tuesday

We had a great time in Shreveport, especially Tristan. He ran around wildly with the rest of the kids; that's what I remember most about our Christmases there when I was a kid, too. He rode around on an old golf cart with the other kids for hours, got to ride a tractor, and chased the family goats.

It was funny seeing my cousins who are around my age (though I am the oldest by a smidgeon). I think that in my memory, they're all stuck around 1994 or so. It is shocking to see that they're grown-up and one is even getting married next Spring.

My neighbors, who I have not blogged about til now, are driving me even battier than usual today. They've been blasting music outdoors all day long. It was nice today, so Tristan and I went out back to play, but the music is mostly unintelligible, except for the frequent and loud vulgarity. Major vulgarity. We went back in and would have gone out front, but their pit bull is running around out there without a leash. Argh. I wonder that if I began wearing niqaab, they'd figure the neighborhood was going downhill and would move out...