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Incompetent

Another one of those “huh??” posts…we frequent a certain, let’s say, pastry shop (of the “Dippin'” kind) and usually hit the drive through so we can stay in the car with the kids and so it will supposedly be faster. Well, this morning we hit it after church and give our order. And then had to tell the girl at the window the order again. which she messes up. more than once. At least we were billed for what we actually got. *sigh* But here’s my complaint…why do they have that “talk to the scratchy speaker” thing at all if the person on the other end isn’t conveying this to the people getting the order together?? Why bring us false hope at all?

The other thing that this particular branch does that is not only annoying, but a wee bit DANGEROUS is to put butter and a plastic knife in the bagel bag when you ask for a bagel with butter. At the drive through. And I’m not even kidding. Uhm…have you ever TRIED to butter a bagel while driving?? I don’t recommend it.

THAT Family Tree Society!

You may or may not have noticed the THAT Family Tree Society button to the right of my posts. Well, this week we are honored (?? heh) to say … it’s all about US!! That’s right – the Zimmer Zoo is the family in the spotlight today. Head on over and check it out: That Family Tree Society Week 2.

And if you feel as though you belong and want to join, check this page out: That Family Tree Society.

A special thanks to Kristen at We are THAT Family – I really enjoy reading your blog 🙂

PB – Maggie’s Second Hospital Visit

It’s another slow day, so I thought I’d write about yet another thing I know I would have written about had I been blogging when it happened ) So – this is “Pre-Blog” or PB. To see why I’ve been writing PB posts, see this post.

This happened in January…and again, even though I KNOW she’s okay, it still makes me a little sick to my stomach thinking about it. I’ve copied a lot from an email I wrote to friends and family about it. (Sorry if you’ve read it before!) And yes…that does read “Second” visit … Here’s where I wrote about the first one.

Poor Grandpa nearly had a heart attack (yes, the entire fam damily was there to celebrate the Twins’ 3rd birthday – some good pictures from THAT celebration. oy)… Before we could celebrate though, there was another Emergency Room trip for Maggie. *sigh* At least this time we didn’t need an ambulance! She was running around again and fell face-first into the coffee table. Bloody nose, bloody gums, big fat lip, tooth knocked out of place. Fun. Glad the fam was here to take care of the other two kids though! (I’m sure that would have been its own blog post…)

After sitting for hours watching a fake fish tank, the doctors in the ER told us to expect the dentist to pull the tooth…Geez. that would mean the poor kid would be toothless for at least 3 years!!

We had tried to call a dentist we sort of knew (someone from the church we had *just* joined) before we left for the hospital, but she didn’t get back to us until the next day. When we finally got to talk with her, she said that they’d want to try to keep the tooth in for as long as possible…and that we wouldn’t need to bring her in to the dentist unless something changed with the tooth – it gets looser or turns black or something. We needed to make a 3-year-old appointment for both of them anyway, so I just made sure to do it within the next few days (I had just switched jobs and was still waiting for my new insurance card to show up…)

We went in, and sure enough – they said “we’ll keep an eye on it.” But they didn’t want to pull it or anything.

Maggie’s tooth is still out of place – hanging down lower than the rest – and she’s even bumped it again (on Burke’s head of all things) but it hasn’t done anything else yet. And she’s eating with no problems. We’ve had 3 dentist appointments since, just to keep an eye on it…and that’s all they want to do! No toothless wonder! *phew*

We got lucky that she still has the tooth, but I’m still waiting for DSS to show up at our door…

Friday’s Foto Finish Fiesta

Candid Carrie sponsors this one – head over to her blog and find LOTS of links for bloggers who’ve joined in!

This one qualifies for a way back When-sday, but I haven’t done those yet…this is Grandpa and Burke in September of 2006.

Grandpa and Burke

Grandpa and Burke

5 Things Friday

Join Cat in her 5 Things Friday!

5 Things you might or might not know about
Boardgames I Love:

  1. Blockus
  2. Taboo
  3. Boggle
  4. Scattergories
  5. Outburst

…not that I’ve played any in a while…

I’m Famous!

LOL! Ya – okay…maybe it’s just that whole “15 minutes” everyone supposedly gets…

Anyway, a guy who writes for the Dallas Morning News, Matt Wixon, emailed me asking about our Staycation! (He obviously found my blog entries…dunno if he’ll be back, but HI MATT! if you are 😉  ) He’s writing a book about Staycations and just wanted to chat with me about ours. How cool is that??

If you didn’t get the chance to read about our week, here are the posts:

And Matt mentioned that I’ll get a copy of the book when it comes out. Sweet!

As long as we’re talking about how famous I am (tee hee!)…I edited a book that’s sold on Amazon! The Pet Mouse is a cute children’s story with kick-butt illustrations. (And no, I don’t get any royalties…) As proof that I actually did it, this is Crystal’s website. She mentions me in the Bios page on there 😉  The bio is from before Logan was born though…  (And Cheryl, if you’re reading this, I know – it doesn’t hold a candle to your book 😉 heh)

I can also say that I’m on a record/cassette/CD! A well known Vermont folk singer, Jon Gailmor, wanted kids to back up his song, Dirt!, and knew my kindergarten/grade school teachers…so we had a field trip to the recording studio and sang the chorus with him. Our picture is even on the back of the album. And the song received an honorary mention in 1984 as Best Children’s Song from the National Academy of Independent Record Distributors! We also got a tour of the radio station Jon worked at and even made an appearance with him on PBS! HEY! So, I’ve been on TV too. *grin*

What are your 15 minutes? If you write about them, I’ll link to you at the bottom here…just let me know 🙂

Mike’s Bedtime Reading

So…I made Mike read the Mom’s Club post to be sure that I didn’t unintentionally insult my new found club (I really hope I didn’t!!), but that means that his nightly ritual has been interrupted and he now doesn’t have a blog post to read before bed. This one’s for you, honey 🙂

Oh, and I’m supposed to make it naughty. Ha ha. (*roll eyes here*)

Can I just say, Mike is the greatest. And it’s all the little things – like reading my blog! I had started a post about this, but it keeps coming out wrong…and silly. So, I’ll try again.

Take a look at your married friends and co-workers…do you really know what their married life is like? My guess is that you think they either have the best marriage ever, or the worst one. My theory is that people talk ONLY about the big things that happen – good or bad – but not the little things that make or break a relationship. Have you ever thought “Man, I can’t believe she’s still married to that jerk!” about someone you know? Is it because she’s always talking about the big bad things? Perhaps she’s still married to him because of all the little things that go on that she doesn’t bother to mention. Or have you seen a marriage fall apart and think “Man, I thought they had it all!” This could be because she’s only talking about the really good things that happen and not all of the little things that drive her nuts.

Okay, this is still not coming out QUITE right, but I think you get my point.

I’m going to sign off by saying – I have the best marriage ever. And it’s not because of the great big things. (Although, those are there too.) It’s because of all the wonderful little things. Mike cares enough to read my blog. His work is super, super important to him, but he’s almost always home in time to help put the kids to bed…and/or to help get them up and dressed in the morning. He’s at home with the kids all day on Mondays (okay, that’s a BIG thing 😉 ). He views stuff like taking out the garbage and cleaning up kitty litter as a yucky guy’s job (and who am I to argue about that??). He makes coffee every morning. He asks me to marry him, at random times. I could go on and on and on and on. I only hope that I can reciprocate.

Mom’s Clubs

I joined the Mom’s Club of <my town> recently. Why did I do this when I’m already part of my awesome Mother’s of Twins Club? Well, a few reasons, actually. First is that I believe you can never have too much support. It’s great to see the views of lots of people, mesh it all together, and come up with what works best for me and my family.

Second is because I figured it would be nice to meet more people in the town. We’ve been here just over a year and have met a few people through church and things, but – you can never meet too many. (It’s just keeping track of who is who that I’m TERRIBLE at!!)

Third is because I figured this would be a great way to find out what goes on around town.

So…today the membership chair came over with her kids to “check us out.” This wasn’t really said in so many words, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it was. I totally understand the not wanting crazies in the club thing, but…I have to say it felt a little strange to be on THIS end of it! Okay, not THAT strange that someone thought that there is a possibility that I’m crazy, but you know! Anyway, she was SUPER nice and her kids are around my kids’ ages, so that was nice. And apparently I passed (no, really!!) so I’m in! YEAH! 🙂

And I felt like I got a secret handshake…all the moms of the club get a little something to identify themselves to other moms. How neat! (And nope, I’m not going to tell you what it is…they might kick me out! LOL)

I’m already breaking rules here since the club is supposed to be for stay at home moms only…but since I work from home two days a week and might be able to get out to an event or two, they let me slide. And I’m pretty sure that they have stuff going on in the evenings as well.

I’m actually really looking forward to participating in some of the future events.

I’m Free!!

…by accident. *sigh*

I’m no longer strapped to the pump at work. After our staycation, I forgot to pump the last two days. oops. 😦 Most of me is doing a little dance. I no longer have to worry that I’ll forget to lock the door and someone is going to walk in on me (I swear I check that thing 3 or 4 times…). And I no longer have to sit in the cold locker room…in front of a mirror because that’s where the only outlet is…And I no longer have to PUMP!!

But – it also means that I’m giving up the *only* 10 – 15 minutes a day that I was able to read! (no happy dance about that part.)

It also means that Logan is only getting breast milk in the morning and at night. Which is okay – he *is* over 10 months old now. But he’s also not getting a lot of ‘regular’ milk – he doesn’t seem to like it all that much, and he’s really not old enough yet to be getting it anyway. So that means we rely on a lot of very watered down juice throughout the day…and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Plastic Bags

There was an article I read about a city trying to ban plastic bags from grocery stores. I totally get the whole pollute the environment thing…and I hate seeing the “bag birds” along the side of the road, or stuck in trees. But, uh, HELLO?! Because people can’t hold on to their trash – EVERYONE is punished? (I hate that.)

The reason I shake my head at this is because we REUSE those bags. Novel concept, huh? When we clean out the litter box, plastic bags are used (and by we, I mean Mike). Or when I’m going to be out-and-about and know that diapers are going to be changed, plastic bags join us on our adventure. Or if I have a quick crafting project that I want to take on the run and can’t find any of my millions of non-plastic bags that I bought specifically for this purpose, I grab a plastic bag. These grocery store bags fit perfectly in the smaller trash cans as liners…I’ve even seen a can designed specifically TO use with them.

So, seriously – ban plastic bags??  Please don’t make it so I have to purchase the small trash bags instead.

I’m done with my rant. For now.