Saturday, September 29, 2007

Five for Five!


It's official, Nate can ride a bike! (even with his helmet on backwards!)


And he's pretty proud that he can even go cross country.

I am five for five, teaching the kids to ride their bikes.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Excuse me for a moment

It has been a rip roaring crazy week around here, complete with dog rescue and various friends having nervous breakdowns on the phone, and all sorts of service opportunities for me. I'm always happy to do service because it gives me a very needed opportunity to forget all of the little nuisances in my life (ok, totally off topic, but I think my cat is actually snoring. I've never really heard a cat snore before!) and feel useful to someone- anyone really- who are not my children.

However, a few of these things have been VERY delicate (and please know that by "delicate" I mean I really want to tell you everything, but that would be totally unfair to the others involved) and I have found myself flying blind, praying to say the right thing in the right tone with the right desires behind it.

So imagine my surprise when a letter arrived for me today and it was from one of my best friends. In it she outlined just a few reasons why we are friends and a few of the things I have done for her. It totally made my day.

To her I say, "Thank you for re-energizing me and making me feel special."

(By the way, you forgot that I give your kids hand me downs. I'm just not sure how grateful for me you really are. Or maybe you hate the piles of clothing. . .?) ;) ;)

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Anybody looking for a puppy?

So, psycho woman at gymnastics starts talking to me today. I don't know her, but I heard her on the phone and she said something about round worms and getting a dog medicine. I made some comment about our dogs and she and I started chatting- ok, she talked a lot and I got more and more horrified.

So, she starts telling me about this litter of yorkie-chows that she "rescued" (and why didn't I ask how she knew who mom and dad were? WHY?) and how she had managed to get 3 of the 4 adopted out but the last one was 6 months old and really needed a home. She started talking about how she didn't have room, her house was being foreclosed on, etc. I gave her the option of contacting the rescue we work with to see about getting the dog listed for adoption. At this point she said to me, "they're a rescue so they don't pay for dogs, right?" I was starting to get the feeling I was in trouble at that point.

She then proceeds to show me pictures of dogs that she is trying to sell, tells me how she has to charge a certain amount for each dog, and how she won't lose money on these dogs. She then shows me a photo of a 1-year old sheltie that she is sure is pregnant and that's OK with her. (WAY too young to breed). She also tells me how animal control is at her house -as we are speaking at gymnastics, I assume- but she told the kids not to answer the door and tomorrow morning when they come back the dogs will be magically "disappeared" to her girlfriend's kennel. Prepare yourself for the next line: "And she has like 300 dogs, so why do they care about my 20, anyway?" Yes, she just admitted to having somewhere around 20 dogs on her property, with animal control sniffing at the door, and her house fully in foreclosure proceedings. In addition, she also admitted to not having a license because she can't afford to pay over $1000 to be legal with her puppy mill.

The killer? As if that isn't bad enough, she also commented that she was thinking about taking her 5th grade daughter out of school so that she could help more with the dogs, since she's not a big enough organization to have any employees.

Some people should not be allowed to have kids, let alone dogs.

Monday, September 24, 2007

"Do not do this evil deed!"

This is a quote.

Rebi said this when Dave told her he wouldn't record anymore Heroes.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Library Books

Let me start by saying, I love the library. However, I do not love that I never turn books back on time. Even when I think I have them all, there is always a stray. For a long time, I just didn't bother going to the library because we always paid so much in fines. There's a pretty good chance that we financed a wing of the new library with all of the late, lost and ruined books.

So, when we started our home school adventure, I decided that the library would be our friend. We went to the library 2 weeks ago and paid our fines, I put a reminder in outlook to return my books, but I forgot to put in the number of books we needed to return. I made a rule that all library books go on the half-wall, and thought we might have once, just once that we didn't incur fines.

I know, you can all see it coming, can't you?

So, as soon as that reminder popped up, I looked at the half wall and there were 9 books. My heart gave a little thrill that I could be successful in getting books returned (of all the things to find joy in. . .). I took them off to the library, and dropped them in the slot, but didn't check more out due to time issues.

Today, I got an email that 4 books are still overdue! 4!! How is it even possible that we checked out 13 books and I had no idea??!? So, I believe I will start in the lost and gone forever hole. If I don't post for a few days, you know where to look for me.