Down Came the Rain

Rain.

Normally, I love rain. I don't even mind being out in it without an umbrella. It's just water, and I'm not the Wicked Witch of the West -- I won't melt (despite my children's protestations to the contrary.)

However....

Rain at a football game is something else entirely.

Start time for the game Friday night was supposed to be 7:30. The kids were at the school at 5:30 for last minute band practice. We got to the stadium around 6:15 in order to get good seats. And the drizzle started at about 6:30.

*sigh*

Then the lightning started. Granted, it was pretty far away, but still. Game time now? Pushed back to 8:00 "due to threat of lightning."

An hour and a half in the rain and the game hasn't even started yet.

*sigh*

The band arrived and my friend Lori's cell phone rang. It was her son, telling her, "Well, we're in the buses, but they might not let us out to play. We might be turning around and going back to the school."

An hour and a half in the rain and we might not even get to see the kids perform?

*BIG sigh*

Finally, the band director decided to let them play, but they couldn't march across the field to start the game -- too slippery. Instead, they came in the stadium through the stands, and then out onto the field... carefully.

The opening procession was very nice and the kids sounded wonderful.

Back into the stands to play pep songs and wait for half time.

Still raining.

*drippy sigh*

Finally, half time.

New drill positions, new progressions, the kids looked great (except when one piccolo player almost took out one horn player, but hey, it's the first game!) And they played well, despite having to deal with rain in their eyes, on their instruments, making everything slippery.










(See the umbrellas?)

We beat feet right after halftime, as did the band.

Great job, kids, and the football team even won! 23-14. Woot!

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Blog Challenge -- Childhood Smells

On the wonderful board I frequent (read: spend waaaaaay too much time browsing), there is a weekly blog challenge. I enjoy reading the results, but haven't thought much about joining in... until now. This week's challenge:

I read recently that our sense of smell is much stronger than we realize. For many people a specific scent can trigger nostalgic memories from years and years ago. For others, a whiff of a specific scent or odor for that matter can bring back awful memories.

Is there a scent that does this for you? Talk to me about smells that you remember, from childhood, your teenage years, or even more recently, and be sure to tell of what these scents mean to you when they resurface in your life now.

I chose to jump in on this challenge because my sense of smell is incredibly important to me. Smells are inextricably tied in with my memories -- one whiff of a certain scent, and I am transported back in time to exact moments.

It is said that women have a better sense of smell than men. If that's so, then I am alllll woman, baby! :) I am constantly discovering things with my nose that other people don't notice. At one of the animal hospitals where I worked, the head vet also had a good nose. Oftentimes, he would call me over, "Smell this." The rest of the staff would look at us like we were n.u.t.s., but we were able to distinguish smells that others could not. I even found that I could tell if a puppy had parvovirus by the distinct odor of their... ewwww, this is probably way too gross to share. Sorry!

ANYway, a childhood smell...

Ok, one immediately jumps to mind. When I was growing up, many families put plastic slipcovers on their furniture to protect the fabric. Our family was NOT one of them. However, dear friends of ours not only had plastic slipcovers on the couches, but plastic runners down the hallways to protect the carpeting. So, even though that was many many years ago, any time I smell that strong, distinctive plastic odor, I immediately jump back in time to their house.

How do I feel when this happens? I don't mind. I like having that little memory "trigger." We lost touch with that family many years ago, so I honestly wouldn't be thinking of them, otherwise.

Of course, there are scent memories that are bad... especially one perfume that drags up alot of evil times... but I still don't mind. It's part of who I am.

Just call me the Human Bloodhound!

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Nana Mouskouri (no, it's not the name of a Greek dessert)

My Tuesday Tunes have me thinking about other old music. I remember my parents listening to folk singer Nana Mouskouri. If you haven't heard of her, look her up. Quite an interesting career!

And then Benny Hill spoofed her style:



Brilliant!

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Terrific Tuesday Tunes

Not sure if I can/will keep this going, but I thought it would be fun to try!

Seems like I always have a tune (or two, or four) running through my head. For some reason, I've been having musical flashbacks to the 60's and early 70's...

...NO comments from the Peanut Gallery, if you PLEASE! >:(

ANYway, here, for your enjoyment, is my current Ear Worm. Sing along, won't you?



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Votes for mi, 'k?

Submitted a captioned photo to one of my fave websites, icanhascheezburger.com.

Here it is! Photo by Mikee, caption by me:


moar funny pictures

If you can, would you click on it and vote for it? I'd love to see it on their front page! Woot! :D

Goodness, I'm easily amused. ;)
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Can Michael Phelps do THIS? I think not.

Oy, wacky dreams again! You know you've been watching the Olympics waaaaaaaay too much when you start dreaming about them. *sigh*

In this dream, I'm watching a swimming competition. It seems as though I'm actually at the Swim Cube in Beijing.

...pause here for PSA...
(...pronounced Bay-Jing, not Bay-zhing. Ask the Two Chinese Characters! Here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GE4dkpOdPw )
...PSA over. Back to your regularly scheduled blog post...

In the dream, the next competition is the backstroke, but unlike any backstroke you've ever seen.

The participants are all at the starting line... sitting in chairs. Wood and brocade covered chairs. Kinda like this one:








Yup, that's about right.


The swimmers are seated, in said brocade covered chairs, with their backs to the water. The legs of all the chairs have ropes tied around them.

"What do the ropes attach to?" you may ask.
"Guess." I may reply.

Seriously.

Ok, no. Nice try, though.

The ropes are all attached to.... a SPEED BOAT! That is IN THE POOL.
WITH THE SWIMMERS.

At the buzzer, the speed boat takes off at a zillion miles an hour, pulling all the chairs behind it... and the swimmers, too.

(How long is this pool, really? I mean, a Speed Boat?)

"Where does the backstroke come in?" you query.
I'm about to tell you.

Once the chairs are in the pool, the ropes release. Now the swimmers have to start swimming the backstroke, while burdened with these heavy brocade chairs.

Yeah. Good luck with that.

After a few moments of arm flailing, splashing and general drowning, my dream faded into something else.

Can anyone explain this one to me? O_O

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"Getting to know you, getting to know all about you..."

Stolen from Clovergirl's blog -- 'cause she rocks and she inspires me! :)

1. LAST MOVIE YOU SAW IN A THEATER: WALL*E. I really enjoyed it, but I PMP over "Presto", the short before the movie! Like a classic Bugs Bunny cartoon (and you know what a WB fan I am!), it was fast, zingy, intelligent, and hysterical. Pixar has GOT to make more of these!

2. BOOK ARE YOU READING? Dragons Wild by Robert Asprin. Not lovin' it, I gotta tell ya, but I'm giving it a try.

3. FAVORITE BOARD GAME? Trivial Pursuit ('cause I usually kick heinie!) :D

4. FAVORITE MAGAZINE? I actually picked up a copy of Mother Earth News the other day and really enjoyed it! I might just be getting a subscription!

5. FAVORITE SMELLS? Fresh air, Yankee Candles' "Greenhouse", freshly mown grass

6. FAVORITE FOODS? That's too long a list.

7. FAVORITE SOUND? silence. ahhhhh.....

8. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD? Making a mistake. It kills me. Unfortunately, my kids are the same way, and it's hard to see them get so upset when they make normal mistakes that all people make.

9. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP? "Why do I keep waking up at 5:30 instead of 6:00??? ARGH!"

10. FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE? I can take or leave all of 'em, but I don't mind BK and McD. (Southwest salad YUM)

11. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME? Only 4-legged furbabies left for us... and we're on the letter F, so Frank? Fred? Flibbertyjibbet?

12. FINISH THIS STATEMENT. "IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY..."? I would buy my husband a cabin in the Rockies, would buy DD her ranch in the West, buy DS a house at the beach and buy myself a condo in San Diego! Ha!

13. DO YOU DRIVE FAST? I try not to, anymore. I was a speed demon when I owned my Mustang, though! muhahahahaha!

14. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL? Only if you consider DH after a turkey dinner a stuffed animal.

15. STORMS-COOL OR SCARY? Scary, since they spawn tornadoes here.

16. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR? Little red Ford Escort. 0 to 80 in, oh, nine minutes.

17. FAVORITE DRINK? Water, now. I've been off the Coke (as in Coca Cola, not as in illegal substance) for a year, now. Wow!

18. FINISH THIS STATEMENT, "IF I HAD THE TIME..." I would get all of my family's photos in albums!

19. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI? Yes!

20. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE? Ahem, we don't ask the ladies about their a) weight, b) hair color, c) weight!!!

21. GLASS - HALF EMPTY OR FULL? Definitely half full. :)

22. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH? Feh. I'd rather go read a book.

23. WHAT IS UNDER YOUR BED? Duffel bags, suitcases, two craft boxes left over from GS days.

24. TOILET PAPER -OVER OR UNDER? Oh, God, OVER! It's OVER, people!

25. SEAT UP OR DOWN? Down!

Can you can? I can!

What with all the veggies we are getting from our mini Victory garden, DH and I put our minds to canning. Never done it before, never seen it done, but the spirit of Laura Ingalls implored me to give it a whirl!

Off we went to the Kitchen Korner for supplies.

GIGANTO canning pot...
Rack...
Jar lifter thingy...
Jars and lids...
Courage -- nah, they were fresh out. :(

Then it was to off to Barnes and Noble for a book to tell us how to actually work all the gadgets. Cain't git by without some book learnin', y'know!

Back home, armed with our goodies, and we jumped in with all four feet (two for me and two for DH).

Our friend Phil gave us some banana peppers, so I decided to try to pickle them. We also decided to make some relatively plain tomato sauce.

5 little half pints of stuff later, it was time for canning. And we did it! The little lids stayed down ("if button is up, seal has been broken") and they look ok.

We plan to eat some of the sauce soon. If we all end up at the E/R with botulism, I'll link the newstory here. :)

Keep your fingers crossed!

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ALL HAIL, HIGH HOLY QUEEN OF GLOWY STICKS!

Ok, is there something that just makes you smile, no matter how stupid/juvenile/plain goofy it is?

For my mom, it's bubbles. Regular ol' dime store bubbles. (Sorry to let your secret out, Mom!) She will buy bubbles on the pretext that "they're for the grandkids," but let's face it. The bubbles are for her. If the kids join in, well, that's just gravy. :D

Here's my little secret... I love glow sticks. LURVE them. I grin like a banana eatin' monkey every time I have one!

I love not knowing exactly what color it's going to be...

I love that crackle noise that they make when you activate them....

I love how they look as bracelets, necklaces, anklets, tiaras....

I love the purple ones...

I love the green ones...

Ahhhhhh, glow sticks.

We had a few in the house (Who doesn't? What? You don't? What are you, weird???) and, of course, I had to play with them last night.

Activated two of them (one green, one purple), stuck them in my ears and went off to find DH.

"All bow to me, High Holy Queen of the Glowy Sticks!" I cried.

"Oooooookay..." said DH.

Off to find DD....

"All bow to me, High Holy Queen of the Glowy Sticks!" I cried.

"Ooooooookay..." said DD.

DS was asleep. Darn.

That's ok. I paraded around the darkened house for a few more minutes, my happy glowy sticks lighting my way. Oh, and I had to go through the doorways sideways, because the glow sticks stuck out too far on either side of my head for me to go straight through.

hee hee.

"All Hail!"

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Deepintheheart...

One of the ladies on the wonderful scrapping board I read told us about a beautiful quilt her mom made, featuring Texas. She was looking for a title for the quilt. All that talk about Texas triggered massive Pee Wee Herman repercussions in my mind! So, without further ado....

Carrots

What's up, Doc? ;)

I'm excited. Even though we are mourning the demise of our zucchini plant, we have reason to rejoice on the other side of the veggie patch. Our carrots are here!

Dan thought we shouldn't thin them back when they were wee, so we've got some really interesting shapes and sizes of carrots. I picked two today that were gnarled and twisted around each other, all from being too close together in the patch.

Ok, a learning experience. Next year, thin the carrots!