The Joke is on Me

There used to be a commercial, years and years ago, that made me laugh with derision every time I saw it.  I don't remember what it was for (KFC, maybe?) but it started with the phrase, "A home-cooked dinner on a weeknight?" and implied that there was no time for that (but that their food was the next best thing.)  Oh, how I laughed.  Of course there was time for home-cooked meals on weeknights!  It was the weekends that were for takeout.  I felt so superior to the mom in that commercial.  And so self-righteous: I would never be so lazy and irresponsible as her!  Of course I would always make the time to fix a home-cooked meal, regardless of the day of the week!

Let’s think about this for a minute, here.  At that time, I only had two kids, and they were both under the age of five.  I was working part-time (very, VERY part-time) and Chris was a full-time student.  We lived in the married student housing on the university campus and we were surrounded by other young families in the very same boat as us.  All of our family lived within a 20-minute drive from our apartment.

Fast forward eight years: I have three children OVER the age of five, old enough to have their own interests.   Chris works full-time and then some.  I’m still working part time, but with a weird split schedule that was unintentional but unavoidable, and I volunteer with the schools and with Girl Scouts.

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays I'm at work from 9:00-12:00.  I go home for lunch and then back to work at 2:00 and stay until I pick the girls up at 3:10.  Ellie has soccer practice on Monday and Wednesday evenings and Lexi has practice on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.  Lexi has dance class right after school on Tuesdays.  Wednesday mornings I volunteer for crosswalk duty at the elementary school.  Wednesday is also early release day, and we always have a Girl Scout meeting right after school, with Ellie's dance class immediately following that.  Vicki has church youth group every Wednesday evening and Lexi has hers every other Wednesday evening.  If we're lucky, they meet at the same building.  Thursdays afternoons Vicki has piano lessons.  And every week I thank the Good Lord for Fridays, when no one has extracurricular activities and all I have to do is show up at the school for 15 minutes in the morning to make sure kids are in uniform.

A home-cooked meal on a weeknight sure would be nice.

How to Get Crayon Out of Washed and Dried Clothes

...Because I'm helpful like that.

We're still on vacation, but fortunately we're staying at a fabulous 5-star location (my in-laws' house) that has full laundry services at no extra cost.  After being here over a week, I finally gathered up all the girls' clothes yesterday, separated them into two loads (though I didn't bother to sort - I just put half in the first load and half in the second) and threw them into the wash.  And when I pulled the first load out of the dryer, I was horrified to discover that everything was covered in brilliant purple crayon splotches.

You'd think after the iPod incident (which, now that I mention it, I don't think I ever blogged about - rice is the key there.  Rice and not turning it on right away) I'd have learned to check pockets before washing the girls' things, but, alas.

I may or may not have said a few choice words.  After all, this is the second major screw-up of this trip, and there were a lot of brand new clothes in that load.  Really cute brand new clothes.  But then I turned to my best friend, Google.  Seriously, what did people in these situations do before the internet?  There were several helpful results, but the one I was most interested in trying was the one that required the least amount of work.  I figured before I started dousing things in WD-40 or scraping every single stain (and there were a LOT) with a toothbrush, I'd try the easy solution.  This blog post was very encouraging, especially with the number of comments after it that all claimed success.  And, bonus, I only had to buy vinegar (and only because my mother-in-law had just run out), as opposed to some other options that had you adding all kinds of crazy stuff to the wash.

So, here's what you do:

1. Put the clothes in the washer, and set the water to hot.
2. Add your laundry detergent, 1/2 cup of vinegar, and 4-6 Tbsp of dishwasher liquid.
3. Let the clothes soak for 10-15 minutes.
4. Let the wash run normal.

My mother-in-law has a front-loading washing machine, so I wasn't entirely sure how to go about the soaking part, and she uses powdered detergent, so figuring out how to add that and the liquids was a little challenging, but I managed to figure it out.  Here are my variations (some on purpose and some on accident, but it all worked out):  I used a full scoop of the powdered detergent, 1 cup of vinegar - but only because I'd read so many different "recipes" that I'd gotten confused as to what the actual measurement was supposed to be - and 5 Tbsp of liquid dishwasher detergent.  I mixed it all together in a measuring cup, thinking that the powder would dissolve in the vinegar and then I could just pour it into the liquid portion of the detergent drawer, but apparently detergents react with vinegar, so that was kind of a volcanic experience.  I got it all in there eventually, though I don't know how much vinegar actually made it into the washer and how much I had to clean up off the counter.  I set the washer on hot and used the autosoak setting along with the heavy duty cycle, so the whole thing took about 2 hours.

It was quite the production when I opened up the washer - my mother-in-law and Vicki were both there, curious to see if it worked (I'll be honest, we all had our doubts - it sounded way too good to be true, especially considering the plethora of other solutions).  I pulled out the bright green sweatshirt that had originally held the crayon in its pocket and was relieved to see that ALL the purple stains and clumps of wax were gone.  In fact, all but two items were completely purple free!

So there you have it.  Should you ever find yourself in this same situation, have no fear!  The clothes can be saved.

Now, too bad I don't have a whole host of household stress relievers to post about.  I could start a series.  Of course, all I need to do is a few more loads of laundry and I'm sure I'll have some other disaster to share. That's just how I operate.

The Christmas that Almost Wasn't

A bit of a warning: this is a really long post.  I tried to make it shorter, but it's just not as much fun if you don't get all the details.  Bear with me, and hopefully it will be worth it once you've made it all the way through!  

When we left all of our family behind in Utah seven and a half years ago, it was with the unspoken understanding that we would bring the grandchildren home every year for Christmas.  So every year we pack our bags full of winter gear and Christmas presents, load up the car, and drive for 12 hours to spend a few weeks with the people we love.

This year was no different.  We loaded up Friday evening and got up early Saturday morning to begin our drive.  We usually leave around 3:00 in the morning so the girls will sleep for the first part of the drive, but this year the alarm malfunctioned and we didn't take off until just after 5:00.

We warned the girls that this would be a different drive than they were used to, because they were going to be awake for a lot more of it than they were used to.  Changes in plans do not go over well for people with Ebert genes, so we wanted to give them enough of a heads up that we didn't have to deal with drama when it took forever to get to Grandma's house.

Well.  It was certainly a different drive.  Just not for the reasons we anticipated.

About 3 hours into the drive, we were passing Pendelton, and I turned around to take a picture of the girls, who had snoozed a little and were now all happily occupied with movies and various other activities.

Little do they know...

Chris and I began talking about how efficiently we must have packed, because it didn't seem like the car was quite as full as usual.

And that's when it hit me, like the proverbial ton of bricks, that there was a very good reason why it didn't seem so full: because it wasn't.  There were three bags of Christmas presents at home in our closet.

All of the girls' Christmas presents.  ALL of them.

While packing Friday, I had gone through all the presents we were bringing with us and organized them into bags and boxes.  All the wrapped gifts for our families and from the girls to each other were in a pile on my bed, next to a giant - closed - box of unwrapped gifts for Chris and myself and the couple of things that were for the whole family.  Everything the girls were getting was sorted into three big grocery bags and put out of sight in my closet, where they had been hiding for the last several weeks anyway.  And, due to some miscommunication about what, exactly, was in the giant box, where they still were.

Once I had finished repeating variations of "Oh my gosh" and "Oh, no, no, no, no, no" and was able to explain to Chris why I had launched into complete and utter freak-out mode, he pulled the car off at the next exit, and we got out so we could discuss the situation without three extra pairs of ears.

Our first thought was, of course, that we would have to turn around and go back.  Another three hours in the car, except this time moving further away from our goal.  Our second, happier, thought was that maybe we could continue on to Utah, and somehow manage to book a plane ticket for either Chris or myself from Salt Lake to Portland and back again.  Because he travels for work, Chris has MVP gold status with Alaska Airlines, so he called them to see if there was anything they could do for us.  And there was, to the tune of $700.  The day before Christmas Eve is not a good time to book a last-minute plane ticket, FYI.

Back to square one.

So while I freaked out some more, Chris called his dad, hoping for another, less freaked out brain to help think things through.  After determining that the only keys to our house were with us, meaning no one could get in and overnight everything to us, and that no, we couldn't just rush out and replace everything once we got to Salt Lake and then return the stuff in our closet once we got home (which was also my dad's suggestion - he even went so far as to offer to start searching right away and save us some time), his dad realized that not only had Chris's brother and his girlfriend stayed overnight in La Grande, 45 minutes down the road, but that they were still there.

After much frantic phone calling back and forth between the three parties, it was determined that we would head to La Grande and meet up with Blaine and Mel, who would then take our car and continue on with the girls as far as Ogden, where Grandma & Grandpa would then meet them, give them a car, and take the girls on to Sandy.  Chris and I, meanwhile, would take Blaine & Mel's car and head back to Portland.  It is important to note that these two are saints, because not everybody would willingly agree to lock themselves in a car for seven hours with someone else's children.  Not even parents willingly do that.

All the way to La Grande we discussed with the girls what was happening.  The hard part was being as clear as we could about why it needed to happen while still being vague enough to keep from destroying certain beliefs.  We told the girls we forgot the presents and needed to go back and get them.  Ellie, who was sitting in the way back, immediately piped up, "No we didn't!  I can see them!  They're right here!"  And Vicki said, "Yeah, I carried them to the car."  And we said, again, "Nope, we forgot the presents."  Vicki caught on then, and started telling Ellie, "No, just trust them, they forgot stuff.", all the while with a look of horror on her face as it dawned on her just what had been forgotten.  Lexi didn't say much, but I think she's trying hard to hold on to certain beliefs, despite her brain telling her otherwise, and she didn't want to think about it any more than she really had to.  Once they understood that a return to Portland by some of the people in our car was inevitable, they immediately promised to be good for Blaine & Mel.  With the alternative being more time in the car, it was an easy promise to make.

So we got to La Grande around 9:30 in the morning, and, after a gas and potty break, Blaine, Mel, and the girls took off in one direction while Chris & I took off in another.  Four hours later, we were back home in Portland, where we headed straight upstairs to the master bedroom closet, pulled out my three very organized bags of presents, and put them in the car before grabbing a quick lunch and getting back on the road.

At one point, I called Mel to see how things were going, and she answered with, "We just had the best experience at a gas station.  With llamas!"

Llamas make any trip worthwhile

So things went great for them.  Fears were unfounded: the girls behaved, no one threw up, I was the only one who freaked out the entire trip.  It's not surprising, really, considering they've made this drive twice a year for the last seven years, but it's good to know they can do it.

And it's a good thing Chris and I like each other.  We talked, we listened to podcasts, we enjoyed music that we wanted to listen to... it was like a very long date, in a car.  And we decided to enjoy every minute of it.  What else could we do?

As much as we just wanted to get to our final destination, we knew that it would be too much to try and drive straight to Salt Lake, so we stopped around 10:30 at the Super 8 motel in Boise and had an impromptu overnight date.  After breakfast at Denny's we set off again at 8:45 the next morning, stopping in Ogden to trade cars with Blaine before finally arriving at Chris's parents' house just after 2:00 Sunday afternoon.

The total driving time for us came to 20 hours.  Yikes.

But, guess what?  It was totally worth it.  Because on Christmas morning, we got to see this:

Roller skates!

Perfect for the budding artist

Google Nexus tablet - she's been dying for this for a year now

Robotics 101

She didn't take the skates off or put down the
bunny all day long

I will be the first to admit that this was truly a first world problem.  There are so many people in this world who didn't even have presents to leave behind.  And, of course, we know that Christmas isn't about the presents, but the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.  Still, we were blessed this year to be able to provide some things for our girls that they really wanted, and it would have been sad for all of us if they'd had to wait for two weeks to receive them.

It turned out to be the best Christmas we've ever had.  I don't know whether everything was better because we had to work so hard to have it here, or if it's just that we really scored this year as far as knowing what the girls wanted, but whatever the reason, it was an excellent Christmas.  Well worth 20 hours in a car.

And, besides, now we have an awesome story to tell.

Adventures in Babysitting

I wrote this clear back in April, but life and school intervened and it never got posted.  Now that school is out and the only things on the "neglect this" list are cleaning my house and doing laundry, I can finally post it!

I babysit a few kids a couple of days a week.  One girl is Ellie's age and just comes home from school with us, but when the other two are here, it's all day.

The almost-2-year-old little guy still takes a good long nap in the afternoon, but his big sister is almost five, and naps are so not cool anymore.  We compromise and call it rest time or quiet time.  Sometimes she watches a movie for her quiet time, but usually she takes a bunch of books onto Lexi's bed (she likes Lexi's because it's the highest up) and chills for an hour or so.

On Tuesday, while both kids were napping/resting, I thought I'd do some homework.  I'm taking an Anatomy & Physiology class, which means I get to look at a lot of pictures of, well, basically...naked people.  Oh, and the class is online, which means I'm looking at these pictures on my computer screen.

I figured I had a good hour to do my assignment, which involved labeling a figure with the correct body regions, when in walked big sister, done with quiet time.

And there on the screen in front of me was my anatomically correct man, very visible on the computer screen in all his, um, anatomically correct glory.

Can you imagine the conversation at home that might follow an encounter like this?  "So, sweetie, how was your day today at Allison's house?"  "Oh, it was great!  I watched Scooby Doo and read Pinkalicious and Allison looked at naked guys on the computer!"

I guess I got me some 'splainin' to do.

Tuesday Morning at My House

Lately my children have been going to sleep later and later.  It seems that no amount of threatening or removal of privileges serves to encourage them to stop talking to each other and go to sleep already.

I guess I should be thankful that they're all getting along, but why does it only seem to happen between 9:00 and 10:00 at night, when at least two of them should already be asleep?

Last night, at about 9:45, I informed them that I didn't care anymore what time they went to sleep.  I was simply going to expect them to get up right when I woke them in the morning, no complaining.  Since I did this in my "Mom's disappointed in you" voice, I think they realized I meant business.

As a general rule, waking them up consists of me shaking them vigorously by whatever body part I can reach at the time (the setup of their beds - all three in one small room - is such that, if they're creative, at times they're not actually accessible to anyone less than a contortionist) and singing really obnoxious wake-up songs in a very chirpy voice, until they get out of bed just to make me stop.

This morning, I smoked them out instead.

 Oh, sourdough toast, how tasty you would have been.
Also, a new toaster is now at the top of my Christmas list.

It was the fastest I've seen them move before 9:00 in the morning.  Ever.  But they were all consequently ready to go on time today.  Possibly emotionally scarred for life, but ready to go on time.

In related news, I can take comfort in the fact that Ellie knows what to do if she ever catches on fire.  The first thing she did when the smoke alarms went off, before any smoke was even visible upstairs, was drop to the floor and start rolling around.

Things to be Thankful For

While going through my file of old emails to our Utah family, I found an account of our first Thanksgiving here in Oregon, back in 2005.  In previous years, we had always had Thanksgiving with one or the other extended family, so this was the first year I'd had the experience of cooking a turkey.  It was definitely an educational process:

The girls watched me get the turkey ready. They were fascinated by the whole thing, until I got the wrapping off. Then I pulled it out of the bag and the "juices" came dripping out and Vicki started screaming, "It's bleeding! It's bleeding!" (She refused to eat any of it at dinner, so I think if I do a turkey again next year I won't let her watch the prep part so she doesn't get scarred for life.)

She asked where its head was, and I explained to her that they cut off its head and neck, and they put the neck inside, and that when I pulled it out she could see.

I was, and I realize now that this was probably not the best idea, referring to the turkey as "he", and just as I said, "they cut off his head and put it inside him", Lexi walked into the kitchen and asked in an extremely concerned voice, "Whose head? Dad's?"

There's probably a really good reason that I don't ever remember watching my mom get the turkey ready on Thanksgiving morning.

Strange Conversations with Strangers

This morning Lexi woke up with a fever.

On an ordinary Sunday, this wouldn't throw too big a wrench in the works, but today happened to not be an ordinary Sunday.  Chris and I were both scheduled to teach, and since he was going to be teaching adults and I was going to be teaching 4 & 5 year olds, it was pretty obvious which lesson was going to be easier for a last-minute substitute to put together.  (The ease of convincing a last-minute substitute to teach 4 & 5 year olds is something entirely different, by the way.)

So I started down the list of willing substitutes and promptly discovered that there aren't a lot of people who answer their phone at 8:00 on a Sunday morning.  After hanging up on several voicemails and answering machines, I finally got through to someone who didn't already have a class to teach.

Just as I was breathing a sigh of relief and putting away the phone list, the phone rang.

Me: "Hello?"

Caller: "Did someone just call my house?"

Me: "Who is this?"

Caller: "Who is this?"

Me: "This is Allison Ebert."

Caller: "Did you call my house?"

Me: "I've been making a lot of phone calls this morning, so I may have.  Who is this?"

Caller: "Did you call me?"

Me: "I'm sorry, I really have no idea.  I don't have Caller ID, so unless you tell me who you are, I can't tell you if I called you or not."

Caller: "Well, I'll give you a phone number.  555-5555.  Did you call me?"

Me: "Okay, that doesn't help.  I didn't memorize all the numbers I called.  If you could tell me who you are, I'll be happy to tell you if I tried calling you or not."

Caller: "I'm not telling you my name."

Somehow we finally got off the phone.

Without her ever telling me her name.

As much as I'd like to apologize for giving this anonymous paranoid phone police lady a complex on what might have otherwise been a very pleasant Sunday morning, I'm too entertained by the bloggability of our conversation.

Honest Reporting

Lexi's homework assignment tonight was this:

Observation (noticing details with out eyes) is very importand in science!  Look around your house carefully.  Write 10 observations that you think most people wouldn't notice about your house if they came over.

Her response?

1. Our walls are messy
2. No fish in the fish bowls
3. Our stairs are dirty
4. Our computer screen is dirty
5. My bed is boring
6. Our room is boring
7. We have 40 light bulbs
8. We have 8 blinds
9. We have 11 doors
10. Our bathroom is messy

Well, then.  Okay.  Thanks for the observations, Lexi.

I take comfort in the fact that she thinks most people wouldn't notice these things about our house if they came over.

*Edited 15 minutes later to add: I am now absolutely horrified that I put this on the internet for all to see.  In my defense: I don't know what she thinks is wrong with the walls; the fish bowls are decorative and hang on the wall and still look cool without fish, the carpet on the stairs is the cheapest variety possible, and I swear it stains if you look at it; yes, the computer screen is dirty; I don't see anything wrong with her bed or their room; I've never counted our light bulbs, blinds, or doors, bus she's probably right and at least these things aren't embarassing (although...40 light bulbs?  Really?); if they picked up their clothes and towels and didn't persist in smearing toothpaste all over the counter and sink their bathroom wouldn't be so messy!  There.  I feel better now.

Blast From the Past

I was looking through some old files on my computer this afternoon and came across a priceless gem called "emails from Oregon".  When we first moved here, in my pre-blog days, I wrote a long email each Sunday night keeping the grandparents and aunts & uncles up to date on all our goings-on.  Once I started the blog the emails became redundant, so I stopped, but I'm so glad I saved everything.  I have had the most entertaining (and non-productive) evening reading back over it.

Allow me to share with you a little bit of what our life was like in 2005:

July 17

• Vicki appeared upstairs, announcing that Lexi was making a mess. I went downstairs to find that Lexi had apparently decided that she was in need of lotion, and finding none nearby, had decided that her yogurt, which, after all, was a pretty pink color, would work just as well.

July 31

• The other day the girls were singing a song from one of them [Veggie Tales videos] called "Stand Up for What You Believe In". There's a part in the song that goes, "God! He's the one who backs you up! He'll stand with you!" Well, they were disagreeing because Vicki thought the lyrics were, "God! He's the one who packs you up! He'll stand on you!" And Lexi, bless her heart, thought it was, "God! He's the one who vacuums up! He'll stand in you!"

August 14

• Lexi is still changing her identity on a regular basis, as frequently as she changes her clothes. This morning before church she threw a genuine teenager-worthy hissy fit while standing in her closet because, and I quote, “I hate these clothes!” (keep in mind that this was just three days after her 3rd birthday)

Sept. 4

• Lexi said our family prayer at bedtime a few nights ago, and asked Heavenly Father to "please bless Violet and Dash, and Mr. Incredible and Elastagirl, and Jack Jack in Elastagirl's belly." while nodding at each of us in turn...Lately she has been talking to me about when she was a grown up. She'll say things like, "When you were a little kid and I was a grown up, I made the bed and you messed it up!" (while, might I add, she's in the process of gleefully messing up the bed I just made), or "When you were a little kid and I was a grown up, I made cookies and you cried because I said no cookies until after dinner." And because I know you all need a good laugh, today in Sacrament meeting, she turned to me and announced, in a very non-reverent voice, "You know, my underwear is on backwards!”

Sept. 11

• Vicki said, “I know something that’s not appropriate for dates with boys.” We asked her what, and she said, in all seriousness, “Showing your underwear.”

Nov. 7

• [Ellie] is so calm, which is really really nice given the level of chaos that we generally have around here. She just observes. I only hope she's not saving up ideas for later that she'll unleash on us all at once. (clearly, she was)

Dec. 4

• Yesterday morning Vicki woke Chris and me up by announcing outside our bedroom door that she was "freakin' hungry".

also Dec. 4

• Lexi's new clothing issue arises each morning when I try to make her wear pants while we take Vicki to school. It's been pretty cold lately, and since we don't park the car in the garage, it's cold in the car. Lexi insists on wearing a dress every morning, only to get in the car and cry because her knees or her "little leggies" are "fweezing". However, when I try to make her wear pants instead of a dress, she cries because the pants "make me look weird".

I'll stop now.  There's plenty more where this came from, though.

Maybe you don't think my kids are as hilarious as I do, but I can't stop laughing.

Klowning Around

My brother Robbie was a film major in college and now makes commercials for a firm called VitalSmarts.  Even when he was in high school, he and a bunch of his friends used to make movies just for fun.  A few years ago, he put a bunch of his movies from high school and college onto DVDs and handed them out to family members.  My children love watching Uncle Robbie's movies.

One of these movies is a little gem called "Apokalypse Klown", starring my brother's friend Brad as a really freaky clown who lives in the basement and, as clowns are wont to do, kills people.  The girls like watching it, but they find the clown freaky all the same.

Today we went to church with my parents.  It just so happens that Brad of the Klown fame also goes to my parents' church.  When I saw him after Sacrament Meeting, I pointed him out to Vicki and Lexi.  "See that guy over there talking to Uncle Robbie?  He's the clown from 'Apokalypse Klown'!"

Blink, blink.  "Really?"

"Yep!  Do you want to go meet him?"

Both of them shuddered, and neither one paused for even a second before answering "NO!!!" in voices much too loud for church.

Apokalypse Klown, your legacy lives on.  And I'm really glad we don't have a basement.

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'

This morning the girls and I went shopping.  Sadly, it wasn't the fun kind of shopping.  We went to Costco and the grocery store.

And I, as usual, forgot to grab my strong, reinforced-bottomed, reusable grocery bags.  (If anyone has any tips on how to remember these, please do share.  Ellie used to be really good about reminding me, but lately she's been falling down on the job.)

When we arrived home, I instructed each of the girls to help carry groceries into the house.  They were dying for lunch, and I let them know that the timing of lunch would be directly affected by how long it took to unload and put away all the groceries.  That got them moving.

Lexi, in her enthusiasm (or starvation), yanked the first bag she saw quickly out of the car.

Unfortunately, it was the bag full of heavy cans and jars.

And the bottom split open.

And the cans and jars all fell out.

And we live on a hill.

Also, I don't think I've mentioned this, but we currently have construction workers doing repairs on our townhouses every weekday morning.  Naturally, they chose that moment to be finished for the day and getting into their cars.  At the bottom of the hill.  The sight of three kids and a crazy lady chasing cans of soup and jars of pickles down the street no doubt made their day.

As one drove past, he said, grinning, "That would have been a great YouTube!"

I'm disappointed to report that he didn't manage to get his phone out in time.

Chicken Hats

Wednesday evenings can be kind of crazy around here. This past Wednesday, I was going with Lexi to her GS awards ceremony and then Chris was taking her and Vicki to an activity night at church. I was trying to communicate to him, simply and efficiently, that he should not expect anything prepared for dinner when he got home from work, but that our old standby, the chicken patty, was an option.

I think I need a chicken hat.

Photography Skillz

If I leave my phone alone for more than five minutes, it's pretty much a guarantee that the next time I see it, a few more levels of Angry Birds will have been passed and there will be some interesting pictures on the camera roll.

Case in point:

This is clearly everyone's favorite app.
And Lexi's favorite pose.

I think Ellie took this one.
Why?  I don't know.

There are at least 30 variations of this.

See?

I need to buy lightbulbs.

I don't know who took this one, but I sure
hope my butt isn't really that big.

Freaky.

Also freaky.

Dad's not immune, either.

Then Vicki has to go and take a really awesome picture.
Go figure.

The moral of the story?  Guard your camera well.

Or be prepared to delete a lot.

Things that Make Me Feel Old

*Having a friend tell me about a pair of "vintage" jeans...from 1999.

*Explaining to my kids what "fast-forward" means.

*Getting a postcard in the mail from the college I'll be attending, announcing an exciting upcoming bash, and recognizing that if I went I'd be AT LEAST a decade older than anyone else there.

*Having to wait while the telephone survey people run through one more age category than they used to.

*Realizing that the 80s music I love is now being played on the Oldies station.

*Realizing that the 80s was three decades ago.

*Discovering that my body can no longer handle sleeping on the hard mattresses at Girl Scout camp - I swear it wasn't that uncomfortable last year!

*Knowing that at the end of this summer I will be a middle school parent.

*Admitting that I'm still more comfortable operating a Walkman than an iPod.

*Realizing that the 1st graders I taught before Vicki was born will be Seniors in the fall.

I'm Glad it's Today

Yesterday was a weird day.

Chris took the car because he was attending a class in Oregon City and didn't want to spend two hours biking there.  Can't really blame him.

Tuesday is my usual grocery shopping day, and when Chris said if I gave up the car for the day he'd be willing to stop by the store on his way home, I assumed a deal had been made.  I even emailed him a very specific list (I don't know how it works in other households, but whenever Chris does the shopping we end up with all kinds of weird things.)

We were out of bread, so I had to make the hated roll-ups for the girls' lunches.

Ellie and I took our time walking home from the school, gathering enough rocks, leaves, flowers, and sticks to garrison a colony of birds' nests for a month.

I discovered that the girls' laundry baskets were overflowing and decided to remedy the situation all in one day - what I was thinking when I made this decision, I may never know.

I'm glad it's today.

Vicki had her first book club meeting after school, so she went straight to her friend's house, but we brought home a replacement child for a spontaneous playdate.

We got home to find Chris there.   His class had finished earlier than he'd expected, and he was trying to set up the computer so he could do some work from home.

And there were no groceries.

Apparently there'd been a miscommunication.  While I thought he was for sure going to stop at the store on his way home, he thought that he'd do it if it worked out.  But he was finished with the class earlier than he expected and thought he'd get some work done.  Since he gets paid to work, but not to shop for groceries, I can't really complain.

So instead I told him he was in charge of the three girls downstairs, told the three girls downstairs that the man upstairs was in charge and that they could have an after-school snack of goldfish crackers, and left for the store.

I arrived home less than an hour later to find my husband still upstairs, blissfully unaware of the fact that downstairs were three little girls who had eaten their way through half a bag (a Costco-sized bag, by the way) of goldfish crackers, six packages of fruit snacks, and three Go-Gurts, and were now sitting in the living room watching "The Electric Company" with their feet in giant bowls of water.

Sigh.

I'm glad it's today.

During dinner, we asked Vicki how her day at school had gone, knowing full well she'd had the "My Changing Body" talk and video that afternoon.  Blushing furiously, she admitted that it wasn't that bad, and that she really hadn't learned anything new, except that animals go through puberty, too.  That was the question she submitted for the Q&A session after the video (God bless those wonderful teachers forever.)

She mentioned a few of the other questions that had been (anonymously) submitted.  When she said that one of them had been, "What's a virgin?", Lexi, having no idea herself, shouted, "Virgins!  Let's all be virgins!"

Sounds like a good idea to me.

I'm glad it's today.

This morning, Ellie and our babysitting friend Violet found the bag of craft feathers that Vicki and Lexi had been using the other day, and decided to decorate the living room with them.

I'm...glad it's today?

Six Little Votes

I realize this probably seems like an oddly-timed post, seeing as it's June, and it's not an election year.  Bear with me.  It will all make sense in the end.

We live in a teeny little school district.  Four elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school; that's it.  The schools are pretty small, too.  Our elementary school only has about 400 students.  We love it.

Last month a special election was held here.  A lot of the ballot items had to do with education.  Our neighbor, Portland Public Schools, had a much-publicized bond up for election, one that was guaranteed to raise taxes if it passed.

Our own little district also had a bond on the ballot.  We were hoping for money to build a new middle school - something desperately needed, since the current one was built to house 600 students and now houses upwards of 800 - and update the four elementary schools in terms of safety and technology.  It was set to replace an existing bond that was about to expire.  This meant that, unlike the PPS bond, it wouldn't raise taxes.  However, due to the size of our district, this bond didn't get anywhere near the kind of attention the PPS bond did.

Several of my friends were very active in spreading the word.  They sent emails, passed out fliers, made phone calls, knocked on doors, and sat at a booth outside the Farmer's Market.  One good friend is not an American citizen, and therefore can't vote, but she still put in countless hours spreading the word because her children attend school in this district and she cares about the quality of their education.  While our family didn't do that much work, we made sure to hang a sign in our window, put a sticker on our car, and wear our "I'm voting yes!" buttons constantly.  The girls were all fired up about the election, wearing their buttons to school and discussing it with their friends.  It was a great civics lesson in action.

By the time the polls closed on Election Day, the bond was up by 17 votes.  The next morning, the count was up by 27 and we were celebrating our victory.

And that's when the roller coaster ride began.  The count bounced up and down by just a few votes as the few remaining ballots were counted.  We were down by 1, then up by 2, then down by 2, then up by 1.  Suddenly we were in the news.  Rarely is an election so close.

During this time I became frustrated and, yes, I'll admit, angry as I learned of people I knew who either hadn't voted at all, or who had voted "no".  Of course, I understand and firmly believe that it's everyone's right to vote however they see fit, but now I wish I had been more proactive, had stepped up and made phone calls, canvassed in the rain, or just mentioned it more often in casual conversation.  Too many people didn't understand the difference between our bond and Portland Public's.  Too many people still thought their taxes were going to go up if they voted "yes" and therefore voted "no" (although I personally believe that an increase in taxes is worth the investment in educating a community's children, but that's perhaps a post unto itself.)  Too many people fail to see that if you're not part of the solution in making our public schools better, you become part of the problem.

The final count came in today: after a recount, the bond passed by 6 votes.  That's it, just 6.  Vicki will probably not get to enjoy the new middle school, but now I know my other two girls will, and that all our community schools will be safer places for the children who attend them.

This experience has been an eye-opener in so many ways.  I have always believed that it's important to be an educated voter, to understand the issues before I vote so I understand the true impact of my vote, but now I believe that even more firmly.  My girls have had an opportunity to see what happens when a community rallies together over something they believe in, and what can happen if not enough people become involved.  I can assure you that at least Vicki has become motivated to stand up and speak out for causes she believes in.  This is why she and I will be spending tomorrow, and several Saturdays through the summer, helping to raise money for Outdoor School.  And I can't (and won't) complain, because she has become a citizen in her community, and has learned that if you want something to happen, you have to make it happen.  What a life lesson!

And lastly, there's this: if you never believed before now that your single little vote could make a difference, well, I'm telling you, friends: it's time to become a believer.

Six little votes just made a world of difference for the children in my community.

Sweet, Sweet Irony

Oregon has a special election coming up in just over a month.  This morning a concerned citizen left a flier on my windshield while I was shopping in Fred Meyer.

I wish I had a scanner, but since I don't, I'll just copy it here for you, with the formatting exactly as it was in print:

What The local media

doesn't really want you to

know.

Ballot majors 26-121 and 26-122 will

cost the average property owner

$500.00 more a year in taxes on an

average $250,000.00 house, plus an

extra three percent on top of your

homes value at the end of the year.

Vote yes or no

Also watch for a possible 85 percent increase

on your water bill for the next five years

This affects you, if you are a homeowner or a

renter in Multnomah County.

Be concerned, be very concerned!!!

Oh, trust me, I'm very concerned.

See, ballot "majors" 26-121 and 26-122 are bonds to benefit Portland Public Schools.

And if the author of this flier is a product of Portland Public Schools, then he or she has made a very convincing case.  Although I have a feeling it's not the case he or she was trying to make.

I love the smell of irony in the morning.

Kids These Days...

The other day I came across my old camera.

Unfortunately, I came across it during a fit of early spring cleaning, during which I was getting rid of anything I hadn't used in the past six months.  The only exception to the rule was things that I hadn't used in the last six months but knew for a fact I would be using again soon (summer clothes, for example, fall into this category.  Maternity clothes do not.  FYI.)

I haven't used this camera in probably the last 8 years.

And it seems highly unlikely that I'll be using it again anytime soon.

I got this camera for Christmas during my freshman year of college.  It came with me to London for Study Abroad in 1998.  Together we went through 12 rolls of film in three months.  It has held, quite literally, a lot of memories.

I waved it excitedly at everyone in the room.  "Look!  It's the camera I took to London!"

Chris said, "Throw it away." the big meanie

And Lexi said, "Cool!  Does it have any pictures on it?"

I guess a roll of film is a hard concept to grasp for a person who spends all her time with a camera taking pictures like these:

******
What are some other things kids these days will never understand?

Welcome to Our Town

This is why we love Portland.

Public Service Announcement

I thought I'd share a bit of useful information with all of you:

Never assume you know a web address and type it in from memory.

Because you could end up with some very...um...surprising results.

See, we bought a new piece of electronic equipment recently, and were required to register it online and download some software so we could manage it from our computer.  I figured the website would just be www.nameoftheproduct.com, so I just typed it in and hit enter.

And I have never been more grateful in my life that there were no children in the room with me.

Turns out it's www.MYnameoftheproduct.com.  The other site was apparently already taken, by an organization that very clearly has nothing whatsoever to do with the product we purchased.  No. Thing.

I would love to be less vague, but I'm afraid of the potential Google search hits I could generate if I actually write what the website advertised, so I'll leave it up to your imagination.  I'm sure whatever you're thinking is at least close, if not spot on.

You're welcome.  Now, where did I put that brain bleach?