Well, that was a line that I not just crossed, but jumped over with two feet

Two-page spread of cat photos for my Japan scrapbook - done.

I have become One of Those People ... only most of my pages look a little different than theirs.  Today, for instance, I had to text a friend from the scrapbooking section at Joann's to complain about the lack of appropriate supplies to go along with the shots of drunken farewell parties that will be taking up half of my scrapbook pages.  Come on, must everything be babies and weddings and school memories?  Where's the paper that shows a squid on a stick and a giant beer?  The stickers that say "Irasshaimase!" in bold all caps with three exclamation points?  Rub-on transfers with love hotel slogans? Anything with Charisma man???

Gee, maybe I've found a new underserved market ... Gaijin Scrapbooking Supplies!

Magnum Opus

No, not a really big one of these:

I'm talking about this:

She developed the plot, characters, and dialog.  I helped with spelling, she wrote everything down.  I suggested that some periods and question marks might be in order; she decided where to put them.  She proofread it and realized she had left out a word; I helped her erase and then write two words really small so it fit in the space of one original word.

And for clarity's sake, the cat is going to have "babies," not "badies."

I am so very, very, very proud.

Next stop: capital letters and quotation marks, followed by intents and paragraphs.  Possibly with a side trip through Prounounville.

Also, my cat sleeps funny sometimes

Yes, she regularly attempts to sleep with her forehead buried in the arm of the couch.
(Please to be excusing the crappy webcam photo, btw)

I, on the other hand, prefer to sleep like this:

What?  Can I help it if they missed me?  They'd just be scratching at the bedroom door if I tried to keep them out, anyway ...

Trust me, eat this

You know how someone will tell you, "Less is more," and you're all, "Screw that, I'm throwing another 15 ingredients into this soup because I know that one of them will make it transcendently awesome?"  And then the soup sucks because really, who wants creamy chili cheddar chicken soup with rice and noodles and cabbage, for God's sake?

This is not one of those recipes.

This is a recipe that is so good, I'm staying up late to write a real post on my last day of vacation.  Behold the many facets of its awesomeness:

• It's got 10 ingredients, only two of which need to be chopped and one of which is optional
• It can be ready in 20 minutes flat
• It only gets two pots and a strainer dirty, yet it's not spaghetti
• It came off the back of a bag of Pennsylvania Dutch egg noodles about 20 years ago, back when men were men, chili beef noodles were chili beef noodles and nobody east of California thought about putting seitan in anything
• It's called "chili," yet contains none of those mealy little red beans that people insist on throwing into their otherwise perfectly decent recipes

Chili Beef Noodles

1 pound ground beef

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 clove garlic, minced

2 teaspoons chili powder

16 ounces canned tomatoes

15 ounces tomato sauce

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

hot pepper sauce (optional)

8 ounces egg noodles

In a large skillet, brown the ground beef, onion, and garlic.  Drain.  Stir in the chili powder; add tomatoes, tomato sauce, salt, and pepper.  Add hot pepper sauce to taste, if you like your food spicy.  Simmer 10 more minutes, stirring occasionally.  Meanwhile, cook a whole bag of wide egg noodles according to package directions.  Serve meat mixture over egg noodles.

Serves 6

Wow! Keys that are larger than Chiclets!

I've been in a car for 9 hours, unpacked everything I own, eaten frozen pizza, and corralled my "spaceship Liza" into her "hibernation chamber" for the night.

And all I can think is, "I can type!  I can type!  I can type with more than my pinkie finger!"

Also, "God damn, is November the longest month of the year, or is it just because I have to blog every single day of it that it seems so long?"

Not to mention, "When am I going to get that blogging purple heart for doing NaBloPoMo from dial-up Hell and while driving down a highway and on a tiny little screen that's 2" across?"

And finally, "yawn"

Well, that's not something you hear every day

My daughter is watching a rerun of the Punkin Chunkin special on tv and trying to explain the difference between a trebouchet and a catapult - to her Pillow Pet. It's both cute and freaky, with the freaky possibly winning.

Just another family holiday

My husband is trying to get my MIL's GPS to install on her laptop, my SIL is champing at the bit to use the laptop to update her fantasy football roster, I'm trying to blog with a keyboard that's 3" across, and my daughter? She's got her own traditions: Mythbusters Marathon! And if I could figure out how to post the link to my photo stream - oh wait, maybe this is it: http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/58932732@N00/5206988050/

Really, whose fingers are this small?

I'm trying to be all techno-philic and post this from my iPod. Seriously, who has fingers small enough to type without ending up with massive typos? It thinks I should have said 'techno-phallic,' which would be a whole different kettle of fish. Wouldn't it, O Queen of the Magic Bullet? (That's you, Tab, since I can't figure out how to post links right now.)

Fun at the coffee shop

Today I took my husband to the local coffee shop so we could hijack their wi-fi.  He checked work e-mail and I downloaded new games for my iPad Touch, and it was a lovely date all the way around.

So, which games and apps do you like for the Touch or the iPhone or the iPad?  I'm looking for more time-wasters to load onto this puppy.

Not sure where she had more fun ...

... at Longwood Gardens, playing under the ginkgo trees, 

... or playing in the river that runs through the empty lots down the street from my parents' house.

 Both were free today, so I guess it doesn't really matter, now does it?

Revenge is sweet

I may be spending my vacation helping my mother de-clutter her house, but at least I can get my own personal type of revenge.  

Internet - behold, my mother in her "boy haircut" phase in junior high school!

Luckily, her hair grows fast, so by senior year she cleaned up pretty nice.

Now, all I have to do is hide MY junior high school photos and make sure I'm the only one who knows the login for my blog editor ...

Boom!

We toured the Hagley Museum today, learning much about gears,

and grinding (and peeking through double walls that protected the factory workers from occasional grinding explosions),

and ginkgoes,

and gunpowder.

Much fun was had by all.  I can highly recommend dragging your offspring and spouse there, should you happen to be in Delaware anytime soon.  Plus, great gift shop!

Just realized this ...

... I never did post a badge for completing NaBloPoMo 2009.  So I'm doing it now ...

Visiting an old friend

It's been a while since we've been by to visit the tortoise statue, but today was a good day for it.

It was also a good day for spotting rainbows, courtesy of the beveled edges of the glass walls around the snack room at the museum.

This was one of 12 we could see from our table, including one that hit both a wall and a trash can that reflected it onto the floor - bonus!

My parents' cats are awesome

They're trying to kill my Hex Bug.  They have not succeeded.

My kid is also trying to kill it, but she's killing it with luuuuurve.  Guess what she's getting more of for Christmas ...

I swear, I can't leave him alone for 10 minutes

After hearing my husband say things like, "I need to be careful that I don't rush into buying a car.  I tend to nickel-and-dime little stuff and then buy big things fast just to get it over with," I was a bit reluctant to let him go over to the dealership by himself to have them assess the value of his trade-in.  Especially since "I guess I should get a new car before I have to go through the e-Check thing again in January" had morphed over the weekend into "I'd better hurry before all of the 2010 models are sold."

He test-drove some models, narrowed it down to the one he wanted, had me test-drive it, and decided that he got home early enough today to stop in and see how much they'd give him in trade for his Impala.  "You're not going to go buy a car while I'm ordering the pizza, are you?  You learned from the 'really awesome used Acura which you didn't notice had a bent frame until months after you bought it' incident of 1999, right?"

"No, I'm just going to have them look at the Chevy, and I'll be home for dinner."

***

Twenty minutes later, the phone rings.

"So, they're hitting me pretty hard here.  They offered me almost the maximum blue book value for my car and told me I can put down a couple hundred dollars in deposit and reserve one of the 2010s until I get back.  Should I stay here or come home?"

***

Five minutes later, the phone rings.

"When I said I needed to leave, they offered me $500 more for my car, and another $500 for some obscure rebate, if I buy tonight instead of waiting to start the paperwork when I get back.  What do you think?"

***

Five minutes later, the phone rings.

"How much do we pay for our mortgage every month?"

***

Five minutes later, the phone rings.

"Eight-forty, baby!  The lady's eyes just about popped out of her head when she saw our credit score."

***

Guess who will have a shiny new (red) Altima waiting for him at the dealership when he gets back from his business trip?

And guess who was sort of ticked to find out we'd missed the maximum possible credit score by 10 measly points?  If only I'd paid that $40 medical bill on time in 1998 ...

And guess who now has her eye on a Leaf to replace the LazyMamaMobile in a year or two?

Oh, the shame

Yes, I did spent an hour of my life making little fabric hats to cover the jars of jam I'm bringing home for the holidays.  And now I'm wasting another hour trying to make cute labels for the jars.

ETA:  Screw that, I'm using cute ones I found here.

I'm such a dweeb.  But I'm a dweeb with kick-ass cherry jam!

I can't decide which is more awesome -

... his extreme concentration, or his pride in producing the lumpiest God's Eye I've ever seen.

... the four-foot God's Eye frame, or the fact that the three of them started working on it as a team with no prompting from anyone.

... that I get swarmed by hugging kids whenever I go into the kindergarten class, or that two of my elective students stopped to tell me how much they enjoyed today's class.

(And no, that's not Liza - she chose not to take my elective this session.  Wait until you see the awesome bobbly-headed turkey hat she made in her class, though - it's a humdinger!)

Odd Meal From Our Fridge

Dinner tonight:
Leftover butter chicken, lamb ghosh, rice, naan, and kulcha
Brussels sprouts with butter
Pumpkin and sage linguine with butter and salt

And the kid had a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich.

Now I just have to manage to use up two heads of cauliflower and two giant squash before, um, Thursday.  Either that, or we're using it as ballast in the car on the way to Delaware ...

Well, that was an odd ending to the day

Tonight Liza spent the evening at school for a parents' night out, singing Karaoke and apparently eating anything that wasn't nailed down.  We didn't have distinct plans for our free time, so we did some early Christmas shopping scouting, had a nice dinner, and went to test-drive some new cars.  We stopped for ice cream, and with a little time to spare we started back toward the school.

Jason was driving down a busy street in a nearby suburban strip-mall-infested area when he said, "What the hell is that?"  He swerved around a bundle that was lying in the road, which we realized as we went past was an old guy stretched out on the ground across half of our lane.  He looked at first glance to be either very asleep or very dead.

Jason slammed on the brakes, pulled into the parking lot near the guy, and got out to see if he could help the man.  Several other cars stopped, too, and another couple reached him first.  Jason came back to move the car to block the lane so nobody would accidentally run the guy (or any of the helpers) down (yay, hazard lights!), and the other two people helped him gather his belongings. Hat on head, cane in hand, collapsible light saber stuffed down his pants (????), the man staggered to his feet, leaving a small pool of blood on the pavement where his head had been.  The couple helped him move to the sidewalk while a third stranger called 911.  While we left to rush back to the school, we saw the man talking - or maybe arguing - with the couple, apparently refusing to sit down and rest while waiting for the ambulance.

So, how was your Saturday?

Blackmail

Dude, if you're going to invade my space every time I sit down to work on my laptop ...

... I'm totally going to post stupid pictures of you on the internet.

Now, go get me a vacuum to get all your fur off my keyboard.  And stop snoring.

Mathematical equation

X

+

Y

=

(Li) Z (a)

As far as we can tell from the pictures, my genes can claim the numerator (eyes and eyebrows), Jason's genes can claim the denominator (lips, teeth, and chin), and we're split over the territory near her nose.  He gets body type (including whacked out toes) and I get hair.  Guess that's a pretty even split, huh?

One of those days

Did you ever have one of those days when you planned to do nothing but clean the house, so you put on junky clothes and pulled your hair up out of your way in a dorky hairstyle ... and then remembered you had an appointment, and ran out without changing or even remembering that you should have changed, and then caught a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and just about lost it?

Yeah, me either.

NOT.

Open letter

Dear Mr. "My School is an Expensive Private School for Profoundly Gifted Children,"

Perhaps it would come across better at the preschool open house if you would put down your book and actually talk to the parents walking past your booth.  So that, you know, it looks like you're doing something worth that kind of tuition.

Not that I would ever be so uppity as to tell you your business.  After all, the people were walking right past your booth and stopping at mine to have a nice conversation and pick up some literature.

Boo-yah, Mr. I Have 25 Years of Experience Educating Gifted Children.

Sincerely, Mrs. Parent Volunteer

Did you realize ...

... that having a table at a preschool information night is practically the same as staffing the booth at a trade show, only you don't have to wear heels, and you're selling kindergarten instead of chemicals?  Oh, and people aren't such Giveaway Whores at the info nights.  I swear, send a normally sane person into a trade show and they will attempt to come home with at least one of everything that's not nailed down.

Loving the details

A beech tree in the sun ...

... a beaver's construction foreman ...

... and tiny, tiny little hips.

Because you can't have too many pictures of vegetables (especially cute ones)

When Mr. "Amish Vegetable Guy Whose Stand Is Next To The Meat Guy's Stand" told me I was welcome to pick through the containers to make sure I got the tiniest Brussels sprouts, I could have reached across the cauliflower and kissed his frighteningly bearded face.  Because my God, how cute are these guys?

And my God, do you have any idea how long it takes to clean and prep 3 quarts of these little beauties?  I'll let you know in a few weeks when I finally finish the job ...

Once again, I am proven right.

The "rain" outside is bouncing, once again proving that in Cleveland it ALWAYS snows before my birthday.

Now, if only I could remember where I stuck the ice scraper when I put it away last May ...

Halloween roundup

At school, all the kids had to dress as a character from a book (and bring the book with them - no cheating, smartypants!), so Liza threw on every piece of schlocky jewelry she had and was Fancy Nancy.

At home, despite having a perfectly lovely witch costume (thanks, Tab!) which she had specifically requested several weeks ago, Liza decided to make up her own costume again this year.  At least we got something more identifiable than last year's "orchestra girl."  

I give you: Christmas Caroler

Only she wouldn't wear the hat or carry the folder labeled "Christmas Carols" with her while trick-or-treating, so our neighbors probably think she's a bit touched in the head and just skipped ahead a holiday or two this year.  Oh, well - at least it made sense when she did tell them what she was!

You know you put off the gardening until too late when ...

... you have traded your sun visor for a wool knit hat.
... you have to wait for the frost to melt before you begin work for the day.
... you have to wear warm gloves under your gardening gloves.
... you can see your breath as you curse at the clods of clay that you laughingly call "soil."
... you start thinking that you could just leave the spade sticking out of the bed, put twinkle lights on it, and call it a seasonal decoration.
... you're more concerned about frostbite and chapped lips than you are about sunburn and heatstroke.
... you have to drag the bags of mulch inside Home Depot to check out because the outside register isn't open anymore.
... you know from first-hand experience that if you wear really loose jeans, it is possible to fit one of those microwavable rice heating pad things inside the waistband to keep you toasty while you work.

Well, I can't exactly take a picture of that

Spent all morning working on a calendar I hope to sell on my etsy site in time for the holidays.  It was several hours of sorting, cropping, resizing, fixing color, thinking of captions, and moving things aimlessly around in the template.  At least I was looking at cute animals while I was slogging through it.  I'm pretty happy with what I've got, but I'm going to let it sit overnight before I print a whole whack of them.  In the meantime, I'm not sick enough of the computer to give up my nightly game of Majong Titans.

She's got it bad

At breakfast this morning:

Liza: 'Lewis and I are at 14. When we've sat next to each other 16 times on the carpet, then we're boyfriend and girlfriend.'

Me: Does Lewis know he's almost your boyfriend? 

Liza: 'No, he hasn't heard the love song I made up for him yet.'

While working on a sketch this afternoon:

And when we were at school today for parent-teacher conferences we noticed that the class had posted pictures of the pumpkins they designed, along with little profiles about each of them.  Lewis's pumpkin "likes to play with Liza."  Of course, there were no fewer than half a dozen pumpkins named after Lewis, so apparently he's a popular guy.

I swear, it's like watching a telenovela or something, and they're only five.

Time to start teaching her German and looking into Lutheran convents.

It's that time of year again ... sigh ...