Over the summer, my son had to send his fourth grade teacher a letter answering a few questions so the teacher could “get to know him.” These were my sons responses.

Teacher: What do you like to do in your free time?

Andrew: Build stuff with stuff and draw stuff.

Teacher: What are your strong points as a person and as a student?

Andrew: Art, football, and math.

Teacher: What are your goals for the next year?

Andrew: Get straight A’s.

Teacher: Is there anything else you would like to tell your new teacher about you?

Andrew: Well, yes…I’m Tyler Mahoney’s brother! You remember…he was with you for 3rd and fourth grade..kinda short…blonde hair…well, you get the picture.

Andrew

See ya…

P.S. like, real soon

P.S.S. like, really soon.

P.S. S. S. like, really, REALLY soon

P.S.S.S.S. like extremely soon.

P.S.S.S.S.S. like, OH MY GOSH, soon.

It’s up, it’s good. The dust has settled and the cubby has been put in place. As you can see…it’s already getting used. All that’s left is to add a little bit of paint. Stay tuned.

The other night, my youngest son was having trouble sleeping so he came into our room to ‘tell me about it.’

“Mom, I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about stuff and I can’t turn my brain off.”

Been there, done that, I thought to myself. “OK, well you can come in and sleep on Daddy’s side of the bed until he comes up. But you have to lie still.”

“OK.”

And, as any parent can tell you, when you tell a kid to lie still, what the child really hears is…”See how many laps you can do around the bed while simultaneously turning the covers into the latest origami extravaganza.”

Mike hard at work!

Meet my husband, the Sand Man. Now that the boards have been cut and glued, it’s time to sand them to the smooth texture of a baby’s butt. Why…I’m not sure, but that seems to be the plan. My husband has been kickin’ up sawdust in the garage for two days now and SOMEBODY is getting a little impatient. Can you guess who?

“Is it done yet? Is it done yet? Huh? Huh? Huh?”

Spranq, a Netherlands based company, has figured out a cool way of saving ink. They developed a new font, aptly named “ecofont,” that uses up to 20% less ink than a traditional font. Essentially, when the letters are viewed at a large font size (like the diagram above), it looks like somebody riddled the letters with holes. But at a normal size type (font size 9 – 10 looks best) you can’t tell the difference AND you get the benefit of saving money and the earth by using less ink when printing. The font is free and can be downloaded for both Windows and Mac platforms directly from Spranq’s Web site.

Seems like I am always in search of ways to become healthier…spiritually, mentally and physically. My latest quest is to eat healthier. I’ve always tried to make good choices when it comes to food, but after watching the movie King Corn, which I highly recommend, it made we want to particularly focus on eating more organic produce, grass fed beef, and especially cut out anything made with high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, trans fats, and the other yucky stuff you find in a lot of products in the middle aisles of the grocery store.

I love Mother’s Day! It’s a day when my family spoils me rotten, I don’t do any housework, and I just do what I want to do when I want to do it. I feel so, so…FREE! And this year was no exception.

The day started with my husband and children serving me a lovely breakfast in bed and showering me with flowers, kisses, and beautiful cards. Not a bad way to start the day. Then I came downstairs and was greeted by the face lick of my puppy and the melodic purrs of our two cats. I was definitely “feelin’ the love.”

I love to help people, I really do. But for some strange reason, whenever I volunteer I become dumb as dirt. This was recently made clear when working at the snack shack at my son’s soccer game.

“OK, you want a hotdog, soda, and popcorn?” I repeated to my customer.

“Yes.”

“OK, that’s $2 plus $1 plus $1 plus $1. So that’s uh, let me see, uh, let me just get the calculator…”

“It’s $5, Ma’am,” I was informed by my now annoyed customer.

“Oh right. Silly me. Out of $10? So that means you get, uh, uh, uh…”

“$5 change.”

“Right.”

OK, so this might be a slight exaggeration, but not much. I don’t know if it’s just being put on the spot or the old adage, if you don’t use certain skills on a daily basis it becomes harder to perform them. Either way, one thing is for sure, I think I’ll always have a fear to volunteer.

Anybody else?

Anybody else out there in the 40 set feel like they’ve got 80 year old hips? I don’t know what’s happening, but my hips are so stiff, if I don’t stretch for about 20 minutes in the morning I’m miserable. I don’t think this is anything too unfamiliar for my age group. Granted if I lost a few pounds and worked out a little more this anomaly would probably subside, but it’s much more fun to just complain about it.

Wanna join along? Just repeat after me, “Oh, my aching hips.”

The other night I was giving my son his insulin shot and this particular night he decided he wanted the shot in his upper thigh. No big thing. He usually just drops his pants, we do the shot, and then go about our business. Well, this particular night we were in the living room and I was sitting on the couch. I gave him his shot and as he stood up and was hoisting up his pants his younger brother entered the room. My eldest was just zipping up his fly when he coyly said, “Nope. Nothing going on here.” My youngest didn’t get the reference, but I thought it was hilarious. Totally inappropriate, but hilarious.