I'm a work in progress

Jake: Daddy, tell Mommy about CCR.

Link: She doesn't know CCR.

Me: Clearance Clearwater Revival?

Link: Did you just say Clearance?

Me: Not right?

Link: No....but you did MUCH better than I thought you would considering they probably broke up before you were born.

Should I get a CLUE?

Today I was reading the local town paper and noticed an advertisement for a small community theater for adults. They were advertising auditions for a local performance of CLUE and I actually stopped and thought for a moment, "That might be fun." I loved doing theater in high school and it might be fun to do something outside the usual routine around here. Or it might just be the additional commitment that causes the men in the white coats to come and get me.

I'll have to give it some thought.

One seriously exhausted dog

Poor Leo was so exhausted after Doggie Daycare yesterday that he practically fell off the couch in his sleep.

Spelling tests

Every week Hannah has a spelling test at school. On Monday she comes home with two lists. The first list is comprised of that week's spelling words for everyone. They take a practice test for those words on Monday and if you pass that you get to do the second "advanced" list for the test on Friday. This is great in the fact that Hannah obviously has to know all the words in the first list AND the second list thereby expanding her vocabulary and spelling abilities. But you have to wonder about the poor kids who don't test out of the first list thereby not having to learn the second list of words. Do they never learn those words then? Aren't they being shortchanged a bit?

For example, the main list for this week includes the words germ, stage, cage, huge, large, and age. The second list includes the words pigeon, pageant, refrigerator, scavenger, and sausage. There is a huge difference as you can see.

Leo update

I thought today would be a great day to update you a little bit on our littlest munchkin, Leo. Leo has been doing pretty good lately. He still has accidents at night sometimes but for the most part he doesn't have any accidents during the day. The other night when Link and the kids were home he even grabbed his leash and started dragging it over to the door to let them know he needed to go out.

Jake and Leo this morning:


Leo even has his own special bed in the office so that he can be in there while we're all working.




Leo does great when we give him a bath but the best part of the show is afterwards. He hates having his ears wet and goes to great - and humorous - extremes to get them dry:

Vegas, baby, Vegas!

Okay, so it's actually Needles, California but we're flying in and out of Las Vegas. That counts right?

Today I booked our flight out to visit Mom and Dad in Needles, CA again this year. We weren't planning on going this year but since it was going to be such a long stretch between currently scheduled visits - and because I stumbled upon great airfare - I went ahead and booked our trip this morning.

This year we'll be heading out in the middle of April instead of the end of February/early March so hopefully it will be nice and hot out there. Last year it wasn't too bad but by April we're going to want a really nice, hot, sunny vacation.

Obviously enough time has lapsed since our trip to Albuquerque a few weeks ago that I'm willing to get back on a plane with my kids. I must admit, 99.99999999999999% of the time my children are fantastic travelers but our return from New Mexico at the end of last month made me rethink my desire to travel with children. I suppose they were actually still better than most children travelers but it was just a long, tiring, frustrating day flying back from New Mexico.

I'm very excited about going to California in March and I must admit it picked me up out of my doldrums a little bit today. It has been a long few weeks and it's great to have another exciting trip to look forward to. I'm always happiest when I'm planning a trip.

Yoohoo! Anyone there?

I realize I've been missing in action for the past few days but I have to say, my mental state these days has not been conducive to witty writings about my life. Work has been quite insane and I'm struggling to find the joy in my job these days. There are certain aspects of my job that I love more than anything and others that make me want to jump off the nearest bridge. I don't even know what is going on in my own head much less have the ability to write about it here. Obviously there aren't many things I can change about my situation given the current economy but that doesn't make it any easier to struggle with some of these issues. In fact, it makes it a lot harder.

Luckily I have a great friend in Tracy, who took me out Saturday night to distract me from all my woes. We had a great girls' night in the city where we went to dinner, saw a concert, and then crashed at a hotel after staying up until the wee hours of the morning chatting. Even better, I have a great husband in Lincoln who then let me come home and take a nice long nap and a hot bath to recover from a long night that would have been merely a blip on the radar back when I was 22 instead of 32.