Category: Little Things

Facebook is Cool

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I originally joined facebook so that I could spy keep my eye on Big Brother, since he had joined facebook to share photos with friends.

I’ve recently discovered that I have a whole bunch of cousins, aunts, nieces, and a sister-in-law on facebook! In fact, a bunch of my cousins and I have been keeping in touch this last week, concerning my dad in the hospital. Facebook has been an easy way to keep them updated.

My dad is mystified that I am communicating with the cousins in this manner. He refuses to look at facebook, but he did say that he received a “demand” to be added as a friend, from one of his accounting students. And my sister said that if her cousins want to communicate with her, they can find some other way to do it.

I think it’s fun, though. I’m enjoying the pictures of my cousins’ kids, since none of us live in the same area! And I think it’s good to keep in touch, no matter what way you choose.

Oh, and Big Brother–I have more friends than you. I WIN.

Memo To My Children

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If you are going to insist on wearing mismatched socks on purpose, I am going to stop trying to match your socks when they come out of the laundry. I’m just going to give you a whole pile of your unsorted, unfolded, and inside-out socks and let you figure it out.
Love,
Mom (who wears her socks matched, thankyouverymuch)

Red-Letter Day

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One of the highlights of first-grade life is the Great Crayon Replacement. A couple of months into the school year, that starter box of crayons is starting to look like a scrap of cardboard with a few naked, colorful stumps.

Little Brother was coloring a shark picture after dinner tonight when he announced that he was allowed to bring a 24-pack of crayons to school now. He was a very happy guy. I told him that I’d go down to the basement and get him a box of crayons to put in his schoolbag.

Little Brother had other ideas.

He took the nice, new 64-box of crayons that was just opened a week or so ago (I try to hide the school supplies until they’re really needed, but the lure of the New Green and Yellow Box is irresistible to grade-schoolers and middle-schoolers alike). Then he started counting out all his favorites.

He has pretty good taste in colors. Like me, he goes for the interesting name. Why take plain old “purple” when you can have “purple mountain majesty?” Who settles for “green” when there’s “granny smith apple?”

His teacher runs a pretty tight ship, though, and I was concerned that she might not appreciate the Little Brother Sandwich Bag of 24 Great Crayons. I figured that at least he should have the basic colors in there, so I started quizzing him on whether there was red, orange, black, and brown in his selection.

We were doing fine until we got to yellow. “I don’t need yellow,” he claimed. “I’ll just use yellow-green.”

“That’s not the same,” I answered. “What if you have to color something like the sun, or a star?”

He finally conceded that yellow would be a good addition to his set of colors, and happily zipped up his little sandwich bag of crayons and put it in his schoolbag.

And now we have a 40-box of crayons sitting here, with no good colors left in it, and plenty of empty spaces. No one’s going to use that now. I’m sure they’ll start tearing apart the basement looking for another 64-box, which I don’t happen to have down there. (And if I did, do you think I’d tell them that?)

Caffeinated!!

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Boy, was that a mistake.

I really wanted a soda at lunch, and all we had was regular Coke or Dr. Pepper. Wisely, I decided against the Dr. Pepper….

Then, on the way to school to watch the Halloween Parade, I stopped at 7-11 for a coffee. I should have gotten the decaf, but I was unable to resist the “Heavenly Blend.” It was really good, too–almost like coffee ice cream. Yum.

That was a lot of caffeine all at once, though. It’s probably 3 times the caffeine I consume on a daily basis. So I’m feeling just a little extra…hyped up. OK, a lot extra. It’s not really a good feeling, either.

I guess it would be best if I stay away from the Halloween candy today. I’ll just put some of those Milky Ways in a Secret Hiding Place so I can scarf them down enjoy them another day.

Ask a Dad

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Every year one of the most challenging parts of planning our Living Nativity “Greccio” service is finding a baby to play the part of Baby Jesus.

We’re not too particular about whether we find a boy baby or a girl baby to play the role. One year we even had twins, which was great because the first baby started screaming halfway through, and his mom ran up and switched him out with the understudy! Another year we didn’t have a baby lined up in advance, and we begged the parents of a sleeping toddler to let us cast him in the role. He slept through the whole thing.

But this year, our parish business manager gave me the name of a family whose child was recently baptized. I called them and left a message, and eventually got a return call from the dad of the family.

Normally the moms arrange these things, and I have years of experience in describing what will happen, who will be holding the child, how the baby should be dressed, that we will provide a clean and soft white blanket to cover whatever the baby is wearing, that it only takes about 20 minutes and that it is outside and there are real animals.

And normally the baby’s mom will freak out over one or more of these things, and I have to reassure her that her child will not be handled by a snotty-nosed four-year-old but instead by reliable teenage girls, and that the animals will not touch the baby, and that I’ll bring a gallon of hand sanitizer, and that I use hypoallergenic laundry detergent.

But when the dad makes these arrangements, he says things like, “Great!” “No problem!” “Sounds good!”

I’m definitely going to make it a point to talk to the dads in the future when we plan our events.

Attention Fellow Office-Supply Geeks

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You know who you are. I won’t bother to name names.

I found 2-packs of the Sharpie pens at Wegmans today. I have been wanting to try these ever since I saw the ads in Real Simple (and I have to say, the companies who advertise in that magazine are very effective at making me want the stuff they sell!) New kinds of pens–how could I resist? I love pens. I think there are about 8 of them in my purse right now, because I NEED 8 pens….(well, one’s a Sharpie, and one’s a pencil, and after that I really only need ONE pen in there–but they just keep sneaking on in). Whenever TheDad goes to a convention, he comes back with a handful of pens, and I hijack most of them before the kids get to them.

About the Sharpie pen–I got the pretty blue color. Blue’s my favorite, after all. It really is that light of a blue. Very different, but very nice. I can see the ink a LITTLE bit through a standard sheet of copy/printer paper or planner paper, but not as much as the ink from a roller-ball or gel-ink pen. So far, so good; we’ll see what happens when I leave the cap off for hours or drop it on its tip. It’s kind of a very, very fine felt-tip type of pen. The ink dries instantly, which is great, because I do tend to smear ink around. For that reason, I’d recommend these to “lefties” like my sister.

Just Another Day…

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Big Brother is at a friend’s house playing “Rock Band” and pretending to be a drummer.

Middle Sister is packing up her entire room into some Rubbermaid totes in preparation for this weekend’s repainting of her walls. (She chose “Autumn Enchantment” for the walls, “Apricot Frisee” for the trim and a turquoise color whose name I cannot remember for the doors. Not my taste, but I don’t have to sleep there.) She says it feels like she’s moving.

Little Brother and Adventure Boy have taken out all the Action Figures and are engaging in a good deal of bragging, including gems like this: “I’m magic! I can make missiles shoot out of my BUTT!”

Just another normal afternoon chez SFO Mom. Excuse me while I go make the spaghetti.

Bugged

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There is a mosquito in my house that’s so big it probably registers on the local airport’s radar.

I am apparently known far and wide among mosquitoes as an easy target. I’ve been trying to catch this one since I found it in the bathroom this morning, but no…it follows me around from room to room, just out of my reach, waiting for that special moment when it will land on me and take a bite and cause me to break out in gigantic, painful, itchy lumps.

Until now. Because I just managed to smack it down and kill it.

You can rat me out to the Franciscan Police if you want to. I am not spiritually advanced enough to extend my love of all creation to mosquitoes. They love me far too much already.

Just an Observation or Two

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1. It’s not a good idea to decaffeinate yourself, even gradually, during the week that includes Halloween. I think I counteracted my “half-caff” with all the Whoppers, Snickers and Butterfingers I consumed today.

2. I’d better move that candy bowl. It’s very dangerous to keep my bowl of Kids’ Halloween Rejects near my desk. Very dangerous indeed. How dangerous, you ask? Well, I’ve emptied the trash basket under my desk twice today to hide the evidence.

Yum

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We just got back from our church’s Fall Festival where I had my fill of my favorite Polish dish, “Kluski.” Basically, it’s “pierogi hash.” Some pierogi always break in the pot, so they chop them up, add more farmer cheese, more onion, more butter and maybe some cabbage, fry it all up and serve it in a bowl.

I can hear my arteries slamming shut as I type this. But it was SO worth it.