STC's?

WE is learning about STDs in Health class and he feels it's important that he enlightens his parents on their dangers. Today, he was telling us about 'sniffalous', which got me totally snorting with laughter. I guess that would be a runny nose you get from having sex. And here I thought washing my hands was all I needed to do to prevent myself from getting a cold.

It rained almost all day today, which is unusual for where we live. The water garden is all filled up and the lawn is nicely watered, so all is good. Though it's been so dark and gloomy we've needed the lights on all day. BUT, that is MUCH better than the 8 inches of snow our friends in Wisconsin got dumped on them the other day, so no complaints.

Tonight Angel #4 has another band concert. This makes the 2nd one in the last 5 days and she's got another one next week. WE has two concerts on Saturday and another one next Thursday. I can't wait until the concert season is over.

Random Daydreamer Fact: I took piano lessons for 5 years as a kid and I still can only play basic songs with one finger. I'm not real musically inclined

18 years

Well, my marriage is now an adult with full voting privileges. Yesterday it was 18 years since I said "I Do" to the love of my life. Yay us! To celebrate we went out to lunch, then we both got sick, so I think we got food poisoning for our anniversary. Ain't love grand?

I'm starting to pack things up for our move. I wish I had more boxes so I could get everything we're not going to be using for the next two weeks all packed away and out of my sight so it feels like I'm accomplishing something. I'll head over to Walmart again today and see if I can score some boxes there. Even if I could get all our books packed I would feel better. We've got a lot of books.

Swimmin Pools - Movies Stars

Hubby, his buddy Chris and I went yard saleing this morning. We found a couple good deals. Problem was, we were taking Angel #1's new car for its inaugeral drive and it's just not very big. I ended up finding a glider rocking chair for only $5 and snapped it up, but then we had to figure out how we were going to get it home. It fit in the back seat just fine, but since the top was down on the car, we looked an awful lot like the Beverly Hillbillies driving down the road. The guys wanted me to sit in the chair and knit as we were cruising around, but I passed on that suggestion. I prefer to think of myself as more of an Ellie Mae than a Granny.

Today was Angel #2's last day at work. She gave her two weeks notice a couple weeks ago after she'd finally had it with one of the other library employees. She'd been warned about this woman before by other kids who'd worked at the library and I've had issues with her in the past. After all this woman's harassment, she finally quit. It's too bad that a kid's first work experience has to be ruined by one person with a bug up their butt. Sadly, the library keeps her on despite all the complaints they've recieved about her. Since there were library budget cuts, they can't hire someone to replace the Angel - maybe karma will be at work and the witchy employee will be stuck shelving books in her place.

Angel #1 looked so handsome tonight when he put on his uniform to go to the military ball. Cool thing about the ball is that they have to use their military manners or they get penalized. If they don't do things like stand up when a lady leaves or sits down at the table, they have to do things like sing a song in front of everyone or 'drink the grog' which is a disgusting punch with a dirty sock floating on the top of it. It only takes once and they usually remember their manners after that.

Random Daydreamer Fact: I played clarinet in the school band for about 3 months in 6th grade

How an Angel gets her groove on

Yesterday, Angel #2 went outside to mail a letter. When she was by the mailbox, I called to her from out of an upstairs window to tell her that she had the wrong postage and to come up by me and I'd help her. A few minutes later, she still hadn't come up, so I looked out the window again to see what the heck she was doing. She was petting and talking to the neighbors dog, which had come up to her by the mailbox. Now, she likes animals and stuff, but I've never noticed her being the least bit interested in this dog in the past. Then I noticed that at the house where the dog lived, someone was outside watering the bushes and it all made sense. Sure nuff, a couple minutes later, there she was, talking to the cute teenaged neighbor boy from across the street. When the angel was little, she was majorly lacking in social skills and I was a bit worried that she'd have a hard time dealing with people in her life, but I guess I didn't need to worry, she's obviously picking up those skills needed for socialization (as well as for picking up the neighbor boy). In attempt to remain naive in regards to his oldest daughter, hubby tossed out the desperate suggestion that maybe she just happened to be petting the dog and just happpened to end up talking to CNB (Cute Neighbor Boy). I was forced to burst his clueless little bubble and inform him that nope, his sweet little daughter was on the make. I don't know if the poor man will ever recover.



Tomorrow, the daydreamer offspring have a full schedule. I think you can tell your kids are getting older when you end up home alone on Saturday. This is how the day looks:

7am-10am Angel #1 had behind the wheel drivers ed

8:15am-5pm Angel #2 has to work

10am Angel #4 has to play in a band concert at a shopping center

10:30am WE has to sing in a choir concert at a DIFFERENT shopping center

11:30am-4pm Angel #1 has to work

5pm-11pm Angel #1 is going to the Military Ball (without a girl because he chickened out)

Oh, and I forgot to mention that, last week, the day before we left for Oahu, Angel #1 passed his written test for drivers ed. Now he's just got to finish his behind the wheel training with the teacher and he should have his license by the beginning of February. Yay for the Angel!

Random Daydreamer Fact: I've been to see the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, 4 different times, including the year they had a picture of Elvis, done entirely with corn, on the side of the building.

Invasion!

No, the Japanese haven't invaded Pearl Harbor again or the Huns the Roman Empire, it's ants and they've invaded my house. Ants are pretty common and it's a steady battle to keep them out of places where they shouldn't be, but they're particularly bad right now. We haven't had rain in a while, which may be the cause. All I know is that they're all over the place. Yesterday morning WE had a couple pieces of cat food by his bed (I haven't a clue why) and when I went to wake him up for school, there were hundreds of ants crawling all over the food and the surrounding area, including his sheets. They were in the dogs food again this morning, they've got a little parade going through the living room and when I grabbed my trusty bottle of Terro ant poison, they were even crawling all over that. In addition to the regular ants, I'm also battling this teeny tiny water ants. I call them water ants, but that's not their real name, I'm sure, but they're attracted to water, so I'll find them in the water pitcher if it's left on the kitchen counter, I used to have them crawling around the outside of our water cooler also. They're not attracted to Terro, so I don't know how to get rid of them, besides moving, which we're doing in 22 days (YAY!)

I picked up some boxes at Walmart when I was there today and got a little head start on packing. They're the perfect size for storing books, which is good since we've got a LOT of books.

Today, I had a mongoose in the kitchen and it was freaking Jake the Wonder Dog out something terrible. If he would have just left it alone, it would have left, but he kept nosing around by the counter it was hiding behind, making it afraid to leave. I couldn't get Jake out of the kitchen so it would leave until Angel #1 called to get him from the bus stop. The lure of a ride in the van was more than Jake could handle and he came with me, giving Mr. mongoose a chance to make his escape...at least I assume/hope he made his escape and he's not still hiding under the counter. Wouldn't that be a fun surprise in the middle of the night?

Random Daydreamer Fact: I actually like moving to a new place, it gives me the chance to go through all our stuff and decide what I can live without and haul to Goodwill.

Counting the days til we move

So, the guy across the street from our house decided to talk on the phone last night. Apparently, in an effort to not bother the other people in his house, he took his phone outside and did his talking on the edge of the road. To make matters worse, not only could we hear his end of the coversation, but he put the stupid phone on speaker so the neighborhood wouldn't be deprived of hearing the other end also. This went on for about a half hour or so and it was getting to be around 10 o'clock. We were starting to get pretty annoyed, if we wanted to sit around at night listening to other people's conversations, we'd watch a television show or something. I could tell hubby was just about ready to yell out the window for Mr. Annoying to shut up. I was catching bits and pieces of his argument with, from what I could gather from the conversation, his pregnant girlfriend who was thinking of moving to Hawaii from the Mainland to be with him. The fight was heating up when he said: "Reality? I'll tell you what reality is. Reality is that as soon as I've done my jail time, I'm leaving Honolulu." Well folks, I just couldn't help it and I burst out laughing. Seriously, how could I not with a statement like that? I guess he heard me laughing and finally realized that when you yell into your cranked up speaker phone in the middle of the street the whole neighborhood can hear the conversation. Next thing you know, he took his conversation (and his stupid phone) into his house and silence reins once again on our happy little street.

Book Reveiw Tuesday: Borrowed Bride by Elizabeth Lane Good, good, good. Set at the turn of the last century, which is cool because there are very few historical romances set during that time period and Elizabeth Lane does it SO well. Synop: his last night in town before heading to the wilds of Alaska, Hannah and Quint do the nasty. Quint leaves and disappears w/out a trace. Hannah finds out she's preggers and has no clue what to do. To give his brothers baby a name, Judd offers to marry Hannah, divorce papers at the ready so when/if Quint returns, he and Hannah can get married and raise their child. But...next thing you know, Judd starts looking pretty good to Hannah and vice-versa, then the angst begins. This is some good stuff, people and if you can get your hands on ANY Elizabeth Lane book, do so and open that baby up immediately. She's quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.

back in action

I'm back at home and halfway caught up with laundry. Yay me!

Oahu was fun. We got in on Wednesday morning and immediately headed to the mall. My friend Rene was also there with her girls, so we met up and did our shopping together. Sucky part is, this is the biggest mall in Honolulu...it's BIG, and I couldn't find a thing. I wanted some nice looking skirts or maybe a dress or two, but couldn't find a single thing that caught my eye. I ended up walking out of there with 3 bras from Macy's and that was it. And the only reason I got 3 of them was because it was a buy 2 get 1 free sale. The girls found a couple nice things at Old Navy and the boys found some stuff at Sears, so the shopping trip wasn't a total bust.

After the mall, we headed out to our church convention. It was wonderful seeing friends we only see once a year as well as others from our island that were also there who we see all the time. It was inspiring and uplifting and makes me want to be a better person in the year to come.

Thursday night, Angel #2 and our friend Kahala decided they wanted to brave the crowds and go shopping. They left at 11:30 and got there in time for the midnight opening. I decided sleeping was more attractive and stayed behind. I've never done the Black Friday shopping thing and never will. I don't like shopping the way it is. #2 and Kahala had fun though and #2 was thrilled with the $88 dress she got for $13, even if she DID have to stand in the check out line for half an hour to get it. It just confirms my suspicion that people are freakin nuts.

We got home last night. While we were gone, Angel #4's friends thought they'd be nice and feed the dog. They completely filled his dog food dish. That's not a good idea in Hawaii because we've got so many ants. I only give him about a cup at a time so he can eat it before the ants find it. Well, the ants found it and his dish was just crawling with the critters and we had to throw away a pound or two of dog food. Angel #2 also discovered that her cat caught a rat while we were gone and stuck it under her bed. It was obvious that it had been caught at the beginning of our trip and it was pretty darn nasty. Even after she cleaned it all up, it still kind of smells in her room. Welcome home....yeah.