One year old!!

Happy Birthday Ali G!!!

Whoowee did that year go fast! At least if I look at it one way it did. In another way it seems like an eternity ago that I was sitting with her alone in the Fe waving off nurses that first night.
Anyway, here we are, she all big and cute and healthy and had a nice little party with just the family plus Grandpa and Nancy.
Let's see if I can get some pictures formatted in a relevant way here -

Okay, there they are, our August birthdays, 1 and 70 this year.



Last week we went camping and had a fun time sightseeing some more of this beautiful state as well as meeting up with two of my favorite dingos, Megs_BK and CherylAnn! That was awesome and it did not feel like the first time we all had met face to face. I love that!






Okay, well the formatting is still mystifying me and the clock just struck 11 so I leave it as is. <<<<>>>>
'Night all.

Standby PeeWee's Big Adventure. . . PeeWee's Big Adventure - Go.

First the exciting news - I got a bike!!!! An electric bike!!! Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude how cool is that?
I am so psyched, it is the bike I was waiting for on steroids. We found it at the fair yesterday at the electric car display. The guy was selling new ones but then threw it out that he was hoping to sell his old one. I took it for a couple test drives and man was it neat to buzz up the hill without a care in the world. So I was hooked. Ever since we first visited this place I've been dreaming of becoming an all-weather bike commuter. Then we found the Burley trailer a week or so ago and it's awesome but still no bike. But, I've been throwing out my vision of the perfect bike to the universe and it came true! Can y'all tell I'm a little excited? I pick it up at the fair today and I'll ride it home this afternoon!!!! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!


And I won a white ribbon for my effed up muffins. That was a gift. I also realized that the universe smackdown on my first couple attempts at awesome picture-perfect and to-die-for yummy muffins was a good antidote to me being conceited about my cooking. Thanks universe, note taken.


We had a little raccoon drama here this morning. Our dog had treed a raccoon next to the house and as I was headed over to see what was going on I noticed another little masked face peeking out from our crawl space. Like an idiot I called the dog over to see (WTF?? was I thinking??) so of course she goes diving into the crawl space after the thing. We hear scrabbling sounds and a moment later the raccoon bursts out from under the house and goes up the little apple tree right outside the entrance. For a second it looks like he'll make it to the roof but the tree bends, the dog leaps up and catches the raccoon's tail just enough to make it lose its grip on its branch and the thing falls on top of the dog. There's a bit of a scuffle and then they both go flying back under the house. Then silence. Then barking. And more and more barking.
Dh gives me the WTF-were-you-thinking face. I shrug sheepishly thinking that it's still super early and I haven't been caffeinated. But yeah, I'm still the idiot.
I call off the dog and we put her away in the house and then dd1 and I put up a stakeout to watch for the raccoon to leave. It doesn't. I'm feeling fairly confident that our dog is fierce but not fierce enough to have actually killed or even seriously injured the thing but waiting for it to come out is making me very uneasy. Finally I get the idea to dust the whole entrance to the crawl space with flour so we can see its footprints after it leaves but so we don't have to spend the entire days staring silently at the hole.
As it turns out dh sees it coming out by chance and we all watch it bounding off, obviously unscathed, from the window.

Never a dull moment, I tell you.

I don't like Mondays. Oh wait, it's Tuesday.

I don't know what it is but the Bunny's driving my nutty. It seems like she either won't ever stop talking or she is constantly upping the I-need-mommy-more ante or she's whining about nonexistent booboos or babytalking or weeping dramatically. I feel like an ogre, and have been acting like one to I'm afraid, but I just want to yell at her to shut up and go away for a while. Not that I would really do that, it's just the ogre voice in my head screaming it. I should take a page out of DrJen's book on this and do some more one-on-one time, probably. I took her out to the theater on Saturday though and she bugged me the whole time there too. This happens right wise mamas out there? This is normal, I-haven't-had-a-chance-to-appreciate-my-family-from-afar-for-like,-three-years normal, right? <<<<<<>>>>>>>>

Okay, it's not all bad. Friday was our 10th anniversary and it felt good. We went kayaking which I loved and had a tasty lunch out ad then watched a decent production of the Tempest in the evening. There were no gifts as usual but I floated the idea of ten massages apiece and I like the idea so I'm booking it.

The Fair! The Fair! The Fair is here!!!!! Boy howdy if every single person we have ever met on this island hasn't told us not to miss the fair. Whoo weee. So we won't miss it. And, after a few false starts and some startlingly bad baking on my part, I entered some cherry muffins. Okay, so until Saturday I never harbored county fair dreams of blue ribbon greatness, but then I heard about how you get a discount on your entrance if you are an exhibitor and how pretty much anything that can be baked counts and I was there. Dreaming the blue ribbon dreams!

I am a little worried that I might have missed my one window of opportunity to swim in the lake this summer. About 10 days ago we had two days of relatively hot humidity. I swore the next day I'd swim and the temperature went back to 63. Oh well. I do prefer the cooler weather but a summer without swimming feels wrong.

Baby update. She's still as cute as can be. She is presently cutting her upper front tooth and having a heck of a time with it. She had a pretty hot fever for about 24 hours but woke up this morning back to normal, maybe a wee bit grumpier than usual but ogre me can't say nothing about that. She's crawling like a pro, standing at all times and beginning to do that teetering tippy standing unaided that will inevitably lead to walking. Yikes. But she's so cute I let her get away with it. And, takking a page from her sister's book, she's a talker. She doesn't have a ton of words yet, "Da", "Ma" and "Kiya" are pretty much it but she has intonation down like a champ. Half the time I'm sure I know what she's saying because her tone it so clear.

Okay, I'm going to go shine my sink if you know what I mean.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Grandma and ALi G hangin'
















You lookin' at me?















The prize winning picture, Ode to Three Goslings

















Just when we were getting used to seeing all her teeth again - POP!

Another Fly By

Well, whew. I probably have about 5 minutes before Ali G wakes up but I'll see how far I can catch up.

• She started crawling! Finally. She's been skooching around for a couple months now but she hadn't really gotten the hang of the whole up on hands and knees crawl until today, her 11 month b'day incidentally. And of course, 3.4 seconds later she'd pulled herself up on a box in the hall and was going after all the stuff there that moments before had been safely out of reach. Time for baby gates!

• Dh and I tested for our yellow belts in TKD yesterday. I think we did fine. We certainly practiced a lot. Dh was worried about social promotion butI think he'll find he passed on his merits. Anyway, as yellow belts we get to/have to start sparring so I doubt the master is going to want anyone doing that who really isn't ready. I'm psyched, watching the red belts test was inspiring, they were sparring 2 against 1 and breaking boards and it all just looked too cool. And, as in every class, Ali G and the Bunny were so unnaturally well-behaved. Ali G watched most of the testing just chirping away encouragement and cheering during the sparring. The Bunny was extremely responsive with toys and snacks as needed and they both made me just as proud as a parent can be. Just like always.

• We've made a little progress on the deck but more on getting the upstairs furnished and comfy. The guest room has a king sized bed, we have a real closet and the Bunny's room is pretty much fully decked out and girly. We could still use storage furniture everywhere but at least we're making a dent.
• Mom's visit was actually fine. She really helped out with the girls, doing pick-ups and drop-offs and lots of baby watching. I think having a clearly stated purpose other than 'vacation' made all the difference. the only crazy part was her belief that she could have any control over the natural world outside the widow. The day after she arrived the geese appeared with three little goslings. They were adorable but also irresistable to the X dog and within days she'd killed two of them. So Mom made it her job to keep Xoche tied up and any time the Bald Eagles came around she'd go out and scream and wave her hat and make a fuss until they went away. She even made a scare crow to put out in the meadow to stand in for her while we weren't home. But during our final meal on her last day we heard panicked squawking and honking and looked out to see Xoche had pulled her leash free of its tie and was violently killing the last gosling. It was absolutely awful and Mom was beside herself. So that was a bummer of a way to end the visit but probably an inevitable end tot he gosling. I just wished that one of the eagles had gotten it instead, I've been having mixed feelings about the X dog for a long time and it's hard to love her when her wild side takes over.
• I've pretty much flatlined on making friends it seems. My plan to focus on that got kind of derailed while we were bogged down with dh feeling like an asylum candidate and then I got further adrift while mom was here. The women I have met have been so nice that I'm still hopeful that if I can just put myself out there a bit more it won't be hard to make some real connections but it's been feeling a little lonely this week. I don't know, it's kind of silly. There are so many activities happening here I just don't have time to hit them all so the answer is probably pretty easy, make more effort-get more reward. Right?
• The Bunny won second prize in a sidewalk art contest that was held a couple weekends ago. She was thrilled to get the ribbon and the prize and it was a joy to see her face light up as she listened to the message telling her she'd won.

Whew! i think that's pretty much the update! As it turned out Ali G slept fine but who knows when she actually woke up since the monitor wasn't on! Doh! Well when I went in to check on her she was sitting up in bed smiling and looking happy and rested so it was all good. But add another chip for my Worst Mommy on the Block candidacy.

Quick Catch up

Well it has been nonstop busy here, and I am left wondering how real bloggers find time to keep things updated daily. Whew.
So we've made a bit of progress on the house now. Dh's bout of unbelievable depression (read panic attacks 24/7 for about 2 weeks) has lightened up as have his allergies. That was rough. It also brought everything to a dead halt around here so I'm glad it's over on all levels.
We pulled the dopey roof off the front of the house, we've added gutters and we dug and poured footings for the deck we're now working on. We had been toying with the idea of shingling the house with cedar shingles but in the end it seems like a very time consuming and expensive project to start with when the stucco is fine. Ugly, but serviceable. And we didn't want to blow all our energy for working on the house on something non-essential. So we're building a deck instead. lol Okay, so that is non-essential too. But at least it will be useful in a way that the shingles wouldn't, and now that we've got the layout figured out (that alone took us weeks to decide) and the foundation mostly done - three holes to go today - it should go pretty fast.

We've also been scoring some terrific deals on kitchen gear. I had been fantasizing about a big 45" or so cooktop for an island but I was getting bummed about the cost (well over $1000 for the ones that looked good to me) plus the added expense of a decent vent (another $1000 or thereabouts) and then my super dreamy wish list item a double wall oven (in the $1500-2500 range) I had basically stopped thinking about it because I didn't want to face the budgeting part. But, now I pretty much have found all of that at the local thrift store! A sweet stainless 47" Jenn Air cooktop with interchangeable elements with a grill and downdraft vent for $100 and a KitchenAid double oven with convection, start/stop timers etc for $250. And they work! Thank goodness Dh knows how to wire them up, I wouldn't have had a clue but he had them each up and running within hours. How awesome is that? My $3000+ kitchen for $350! Now we just have to build an island for the cooktop and a cabinet for the wall ovens. . . and a pantry, and decide on countertops and lighting and flooring and a new sink . . .

And, my mom is here. She had scheduled herself a trip north of here for the end of Oct which was crazy because the place she's renting is hardly a day trip away and because she'll miss all the nice weather here. So I'd asked her to come for a week. She picked the week that dh will be away checking on his mom. So then I thought that maybe it would make her feel good (and help her behave more responsibly) if I asked her to come for a second week while dh was here so that she could be the babysitter while we made some progress. So far the plan seems to be working. She's definitely helping out more than she ever did when we lived in San Miguel. She's not only watching the kids a ton but she's helping wash up after dinner and has even changed a couple diapers (something she never did with the Bunny, she said then, with a wrinkled nose, that she'd changed enough in her life and didn't plan on doing it ever again). So that is real progress. And she seems to really like this place. She says it reminds her of where she grew up in Connecticut so I'm sure all those positive feelings help her ignore the exposed insulation and wiring and subfloors. And the drama happening outside the window has her pretty riveted too.

Our geese, the indignant group of ladies, hatched three goslings the day after my mom arrived. The same day, a group of canadian geese arrived. We hadn't seen them around at all since May but now they're back. We had been guessing that maybe our geese were the culprits in the deaths of the canadians two goslings back in May and so the speculation that the pair had possed up and come back seeking vengance was hard to suppress. Well, the goslings are pretty cute and so it was extremely upsetting yesterday when dh and I discovered the X dog with a dead one in her mouth. She spends her days hunting rodents so it's hardly a stretch to see how tempting a fuzzy little gosling would be but I can't overstate how disappointed I was to see that she'd made the leap. And now I suspect that she was the one who offed the other two too. It was doubly sad too as I had only just saved one of the goslings from a footing hole. The adults were all crowded around the hole honking and flapping and obviously distraught and they all looked relieved and almost grateful when I scooped the little one out and he went flapping and squeaking back to his mom (whichever one she is). There was no doubt that they didn't want to lose one so the thought that maybe geese can't keep track of how many goslings they have kind of went out the window.

Well, my little gosling is awake now too and with that my time for blogging is up. Adios amigos!