Wordless Wednesday

Love this picture I snapped last night.

James is cooking dinner.
Patrick is helping Bella with her homework (Well. He stepped away for a moment).
Rosie and her friend are making cookies.
Daniel is making lemonade.
Julie was in the other room embroidering and FBing simultaneously.

Yep, people. This is what a large family looks like.

(On a good night)

Sunday Social - Frog 1

Next one down on my siggy line...

Anne,
Wife of Fred for 23 years
Mom of:
Patrick (16)
James (16)
Rosie (14)
Bella(14)
Julie (13)
Daniel (12)
My children around the world:
Milly in Taiwan
Eun Hae in South Korea
Felice in Hong Kong
Nadya in Germany
Obrin in New York
And our critters Blue, Sunny, Cindy-Lou, Annabelle, Fiona, and Sophie; Mamfy, Mali, Milky and Punkin; Nick; Frog 1; Charlie and Dizzy; Minnie and Alice; Elfie, Frex, Crope, Tibbit and Ozzy; Genevieve, Pippin and Finnegan; and a dozen or so chooks.

I'd like to ask God why He allows
hunger, poverty, and injustice
in the world,but I'd be afraid
He'd ask me the same thing ...


Is Frog 1.















Rosie is our resident frog/toad lover. When she was three years old, she found her first little toad, and she made him her pet and named him Hoppy. Hoppy lived in a small aquarium and we fed him all the bugs we could find. Hoppy didn't spend a whole lot of time in that tank. More often you'd find him wherever Rosie was. Sometimes peeking out from her pocket, sometimes sitting on her arm while she watched TV.

Hoppy was first in a long line; I cannot remember a time since Hoppy that we have not had a frog or toad. We even tried store-bought frogs once. Little tree frogs. Pretty to look at, but bor-ing. Mostly we keep ones that she's found in the garden or the garage or rescued from the pool.

We've had so many frogs at this point that inventive names have become a thing of the past. These last two were simply Frog 1 and Horny Toad, but Horny Toad passed on a couple weeks ago, so Frog 1 sits morosely in her tank.

Shouldn't be very long, though. Spring is on the horizon, and I'm sure Rosie will find a companion for her pretty soon.

From March 30th, 2009

Parenting Humor
A visiting friend saw Daniel in his habitual morning pose of being curled up in a fetal position on his kitchen stool, butt and toes facing the oven. Oven door open, heat cranked up.
She said, "Good morning Daniel. Whay are you sitting like that?"
"Cuz I'm cold" he replied.
"Well, why don't you put on a shirt and some socks?" (logical question, I'll admit).
Without skipping a beat or looking up from his pose, Daniel answered:
"Because I can't afford such luxuries in my life".

Another Daniel-ism
Daniel had asked at dinner if he could have soda, but the answer was no. Later he saw Patrick fixin' himself a root beer float for dessert. He asked me if he could have one, too. I told him he certainly could. After only the slightest pause he said,
"Can I have a root beer float without the ice cream?"

Carpal Tunnel (yawn)

(My apologizies for the fuzzy photo. Can't get it to focus for some reason.)

Surgery went fine yesterday. Checked in around 10, left about 12. Quick-n-dirty.

Nothin' but numb for many hours, but then the pain set in. Motrin didn't have enough kick to get me past it, but hydrocodone did. Went to sleep happy.

This morning, sadly, it seems Motrin is all I need. Ah well.

Should be unwrapped and back to normal in about a week and a half.

Thanks for the well-wishes!

Wordless Wednesday - The Eyes Have It

Some new artwork from James....

P2P

Rosie is signed up to go on a People To People "ambassador" trip to Australia this summer.

This means she gets to go on a 3 week vacation while her Dad and I take out a second mortgage to pay for the trip.
And the new luggage.
And the new clothes.

That's OK, though. You know me, just sittin' around with nothing to do most of the time, so it's nice that I get to drive her to the monthly meetings which are an hour away. I love parking my ample hindquarters on a middle school cafeteria bench for two hours.

Apparently, the chief thing the good folks at P2P need to teach is that the kids shouldn't pack any jeans. Some of the best moments of my life have been spent learning this, because they've gone over it in depth
at every freaking meeting.

I've also learned that, as the person in charge of the refreshments committee, I have become the Snack Nazi.

You haven't gotten back to me by the end of the day on the carb you're volunteering to bring?
I will hunt you down.

Tonight was a bit embarrassing for Rosie, though. The P2P leader was talking about dress code (and yes, she reviewed their standing on jeans. Again.) She looked down the line and said, that shirt there would be fine, so would that one, etc,etc.
Then she got to Rosie.
My hussy daughter.
Leader woman said, "Yeah, you wouldn't be able to wear that. Bare shoulders aren't really appropriate."

Poor Rosie. My sweet little tramp in her layered tank tops.

You know that scene in Alien where Sigourney Weaver backs herself very s-l-o-w-l-y into the space suit when she's in that little shuttle with the creepy critter? Yeah. That was Rosie s-l-o-w-l-y easing herself into her jacket after leader lady called her out on her streetwalker's attire.

Walking out to the car at the end of the meeting, Rosie looked down and gasped in shock.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"My ankles are showing! I'm mortified!"



Can anyone recommend a good convent for my little Jezebel?

Under Construction

I just realized all my auto-send "readers" have probably been getting inundated with all my old posts as I've been changing names/updating labels/adding posts. For that, I am sorry. I will change things a bit so that I am the only one who can view this blog until it's ready to switch over to my public blog.

Thanks for your patience, and sorry to have been such a nudge.