Remember when your husband couldn't see through your line of crap?

I do. It's over.

Yesterday was Annie's birthday. I will do a post on that later. Last night Aiden, who has been fighting a cold all week, and I stayed up ridiculously late. Aiden had slept a lot of the day since I am a nice wife who only gets moderately irritated by the fact that this cold is wiping him out.

Anyway, we were talking about how everything is more expensive when you live in Alaska (there was a reason but I'll spare you). So this brings to mind my sociology class. We were talking about cohabitation on Friday. It turns out people in Alaska shack up quickly leading to a high percentage of cohabitation across the state. Simply to save money. See how it connected in my brain?

So I'm going to share this nugget of knowledge with my fantastically sick husband but I got as far as "we learned in sociology on Friday that " and then I realized this was to be the second weekend in a row that I don't get to sleep past 6:50. Because he's sick and because I had tests to study for last weekend. So I thought quick (sometimes having ADD is so helpful!) and changed direction. What ended up coming out was:

"We learned in sociology on Friday that if you want your marriages to last that Sunday should be the wife's day to sleep in."

He looked as if he bought my line of crap for a second or two and then he asked if that's true or if I am feeding him a line of complete crap. I was so close! Then he said if I want to sleep in tomorrow I just have to tell him and he'll get up. He actually said "I want you to sleep in. I'd promise you can sleep in but I don't know what my broken body will let me follow through on".

For once this was not an "I got hit by a car and I have a broken body" broken body comment. It was a "can't be mad at me, be mad at all the germs in my body and the preschoolers I work with who gave them to me" broken body comment.

The upshot to not getting to sleep in is that I get to listen to the phlegm in his throat make him sound like he's growling/purring when he snores. It's worth it.

Science nerd strikes

Okay, first, thanks to all of you for the comments. Maybe I should just berate you everytime and then I'll get what I want?

Or you'll leave me for a less abusive blog. (this brings to mind all kinds of jokes about "if I can't have you no one else will" and other not funny abusive things to say but I'll leave it alone)

I am a self professed science nerd. If you know me at all you know I am going to school to be a dentist. Dentists are not dumb people. They make you take all kinds of crap you'll never actually need and pass the dental version of the MCAT (DAT) just to get an interview to make them consider letting you come to their prestigious school. And I really want to.

Anyway, I like science. My whole childhood I wanted to grow up to be a mom. I also wanted to do chemistry. (I also harbored delusions that I would be a great painter but after the Christmas Season of 4th grade REALITY and I became better acquainted, in that department anyway.)

Alex is a science nerd of a different sort; he goes to the public library with us and gets books on global warming, endangered animals, and other macro-type science. I'm a micro-science girl. I like things on a molecular/cellular level. Either way, us science nerds have to stick together. And as any great member of a secret society (for all my LDS readers) I am trying to convert many others to my poison.

How am I doing this? By slyly introducing you to science everytime you view my page. That thing in the side bar with the sometimes freaky and sometimes AWESOME pictures is a continually changing set of award winning microscopic pictures. At least, that's what they are billed as (as in billboarded bill NOT "remit payment now" bill). Some of them seem to be rather broad spectrum for a microscope (like the close up of a fly, not all of them are gorgeous, I'll admit).

So you should all take a look. Show your kids and see if they aren't in love with science after some of the pictures. In my experience it's a new picture everytime I load the page so if your kids (or you!) are liking them, keep hitting F5 to refresh and off you'll go to science land!

Well -aka nothing holding it together, AGAIN

Since I spent all that time posting about the fairs and apparently NO ONE read it, I am feeling blah about blogging. Or blah-ging.

I don't just write this all out there for my posterity. I am doing it for comments. I refuse to get a page counter, mostly because I can't figure out how to make it work and I refuse to pay for one, so if you don't comment, I don't know you came and read. Even if it sucked, tell me so.

Okay, technically I am kind of doing it for posterity, also. I mean, the goal here is kind of to keep an online journal and then print it out and hand it to your kids on their way out the door into real life and say "here's your memories" right?

This could be seriously helpful to my kids' reflections of me should I decide to beef me up a bit. hmm...

Okay, I don't know what this is all about.

In all fairness to you, and really that's generous of me since this is MY blog, I started one of my 4 a year periods this week AND had two midterms. So I'm allowed to be fried at this time on Friday afternoon. I'm allowed to be crazy with stupidity and I'm allowed to have hurt feelings about stupid things. (no, not about the comments, there is life beyond my blog, even for me!)

Maybe it's made all the worse because Mom said I'm so funny. So I post a blog with one big convaluted story leading up to the punch line at the end and .... crickets.

Mom, evidently I am NOT funny. Hope your trip to Texas goes better (or went better by the time you read this) than my physics test. As long as the plane stays in the air the whole time it should (apparently there's a formula for figuring that all out but clearly I don't know it!) you've already won.

I did score a 94% on my sociology exam I barely studied for. How is it that I am a hard science major who can skate my way through social/soft sciences? Maybe I need to re-evaluate the major. They just don't let Sociologists into dental school, though.

Stolen as promised

Valerie posted a blog about country stuff and animals being part of our [very informal] heritage. Or rather our kids' heritages. Apparently her kids cry at the animals at fairs and such. I tried to comment on her blog and realized I was making a whole post of my own so I decided to re-address the entire thing on my own blog. Y'know, so all of you can read it. You're welcome, hold your applause.

A bit of back story: we grew up on 2 acres surrounded by berries and cows. We were in the country. Over the years we had cows, ponies, horses, dogs, cats, and gigantic gold fish (which is a whole other story). I don't know if it's entirely accurate for me to consider myself a country girl but I do. Especially when you consider the flip side; I am NOT a city girl by any means. I tend to explain it to people, when it comes up, as "we would ride our bikes on the packed dirt roads of the berry fields, hang out by the irrigation ponds (those dumb boys we grew up with swore that you could see the leaches on the water. I don't know if it's true), and my neighbor was a butcher. Yes, I know butchers could live anywhere but this particular butcher worked at home. Does that give you a better idea?

Also, my high school had a barn. Once I trot that one out people get the idea. We were in the country.

Anyway, the big thing to do in Lynden is to go to the fair. At least, if you're a kid. There is virtually nothing else to do all summer because there is nothing else around but more berries and cows.

I have been to several other fairs, some of them in "country" areas. Way rural areas like the crap hole area we're in now. (secretly it's growing on me but don't tell. It's only because I know there's an end in sight.) These fairs all have barns for cows, among other animals. The one we are close to has one cow barn. One. Maybe it's the size of the local population, right? Hmmm... Okay, the one in Spokane has like 2 barns for cows. Seriously. Maybe three. I doubt it.

The Lynden fair has 2.6 million cow barns.

Maybe that's an exaggeration but it's a lot. And the horses, don't get me started. The local fair has 2 rows of pens for the horses. They have maybe a total of 30 horses. I'm guessing but I bet I'm fairly accurate. The Lynden fair has like 4 horse barns. And they are big. BIG. They have them arranged by types of horses, they keep them done up all pretty, they have shows for pulling the carriages/carts/whatever you call thems. They have barrel racing every night.

Anyway, as kids we would follow along behind our parents WHINING about getting to the carnival part. Because we were too dumb to realize the animals were the fun part and the carnival was the scary part. The older I got the more I wanted to spend time in the barns and the less I wanted to ride the rides. I guess it really came to a head the year I threw up over the double ferris wheel edge and it landed on a girl I knew. I didn't like her but I did know her. She still doesn't know it was me who did it. I have ridden very few rides since then.

I don't know what it is about the barns. I love the smells. I have a favorite kind of cow. (Jersey) I have favorite horses and I love to look at their manes and tails all done up in bows and fanciness.

Brandon was allergic to something in the horse area. We never figured out if it was the horses or the hay or the dust or a combination or what. We found this allergy out by going to the fair when we were engaged. There we were all settled in for the show in the grandstands. We had walked the barns and been fine. Then the barrel racing and other pre-show horsiness (ha ha ha!) started. As they ended that and the stage started to roll forward for Mark Chesnutt to start his performance, Brandon stopped breathing. Or breathing regularly. He started gasping and wheezing and turning slightly purple. So we left the grandstands and found the EMT station (under the grandstands). Those guys were not prepared for what came in the door at them. They scrambled around, finally gave him a HUGE dose of Benedryl and sent him on his way.

It worked but we did not get to go back to the show. I understood. (in retrospect, I never should have married a guy who can't do horses. Apparently flashing neon signs couldn't get me to see this)

This was also the end of fairs with Brandon for quite a while. I still took Alex and the girls as they came along. Once Brandon started going with us again he'd just wait well up wind of the horse barns while we walked through looking at all the goodness and thrilling as the stallions got all worked up and whinnied so loud.

So do my kids cry when we go to the fair? No. My kids have realized this is part of what makes summer worth living through. This is the reason we don't give in and melt in July; we would never get to the fair in September.

The great thing about Eastern Washington (there's just one great thing) is the fairs have rodeos. Last year we went to the fair and caught the rodeo. The kids got so bored/cold/over it we had to leave well before Aiden and I were ready. This year we got smart. We put the fair early in our day, left after lunch and barns and 3 rides each, and made the kids EARN the right to go back to the fair for the rodeo that night. We stopped on the way back and got snacks out the wazoo and packed coats. We got all dressed up, country style, with the girls all wearing our heeled boots and the boys wearing boyish things.

Why did this work so well for us? I think it is due to the fact that they all have different reasons for wanting to go to the rodeo. The girls like to see the rodeo princesses and queens. They watch as those girls go racing by on their horses waving and smiling all made up and sparkle-y. We got to wave at them all last year and the girls were hooked. Alex, he likes to go because of the princesses and queens. Yeah, my boy has discovered girls and those country horse riding girls are apparently at the top of his list.

Oh well, at least they don't cry.

Driving tips

Seattle has been working on getting traffic accidents down over the last while (not sure how long, honestly). They have some awesome signage put up around town :

Aiden and I took a picture of one of these, I just haven't uploaded it yet, down by the docks/aquarium area. Where there's a TON of people. So great, right? But the streets are a nightmare and hard enough to avoid pedestrians without comics on the side of the street!

There's a website to go along with the safe-ness. They are kind of "duh" pointers, right? But I like the second to last one which instructs you to not let passengers interfere with "our driving". I'm pretty sure it's a typo and should be "your" driving but it's funnier this way.

Okay, officers, I'll not let my passengers interfere with your driving. As we all know, the cops are the ones breaking more driving laws per capita anyway. It's perfect!

and now our chicken heads are cut off again. But we'll have some cash flow

Aiden got a job at Head Start. He is loving it which is good because it is ruining our schedule!! Mostly it's ruining my schedule but it's affecting even our (fantastically stepping up to help) neighbors' schedules.

When he went in for the interview they neglected to tell him it would be a split shift. And he hid the fact that he is NOT a morning person from them. When they offered him the job, they actually offered it to him through me and explained that he'd need to start the next morning. Ha ha!! So he gets up at some awful hour (to him) and goes to the school to be the bus aide from 7 to 8 am. This means he rides all around this town with a whole bunch of 3 and 4 year olds and a bus driver who is more than a little crazy and has to help buckle the kids in and convince them to stop crying and/or yelling.

Why are they crying? Because as much as you'd like to think they are scared of the freaky dude with the eyebrow ring and tattoos, it's because their moms aren't getting on the bus, too. Kids have a funny way of prioritizing their qualms.

As for the yelling, I cannot imagine how much his facial tics must be coming out to play in the hour he's on there. How do you convince a bunch of preschoolers to stop yelling on the bus? Because you can't do it by yelling, that's for sure.

Anyway, after that lovely shift he comes home in time to take care of the girls while I go to two hours of class. Then Amy (oh, God Bless Amy!) babysits for half an hour or so until I get home. Between the two of us we get the three kindergartners onto the noon bus and her preschooler off and mine on, the Head Start bus (also at noon because the coordination efforts in this town are so fantastic!). Then I get to take a break from school and kids until 1:20 or so when I head back to school for class for another hour before running (this fat girl doesn't actually run, it's an exaggeration) for the bus to get home so I can get the kids off the bus. Then we play outside until Ashley shows up on her bus at 4 (with Aiden, a mid-shift kiss for us!) and somewhere we start dinner.

Meanwhile, Aiden gets to school, doesn't ride the noon bus, and helps with lunchtime in his class. Then they play for a few minutes outside, then it's nap time. Question: How do you convince a preschool class to be quiet and lay down and, maybe, actually sleep? Answer: You make the room dark as night and warm.

New Question: How do make make an Aiden fall asleep? It's the same answer. Plus, he's been up since that ungodly hour of the morning. So thankfully there's a little girl who is a complete brat in his corner which forces him to stay awake to keep her from keeping everyone else awake. Or there was. The lead teacher took pity on Aiden having to deal with all the brats and moved this one girl to another corner. But now who will keep Aiden awake? It's only nap time for the kids!!!

After nap, they play outside again, have snack, and he rides the afternoon bus to bring home Ashley's class. Again with the overly nuts driver. Then he gets to go back to school until the rest of the parents come get their kids. THEN he gets to mop and finally he can come home.

Our dinner hour has changed to 6 instead of 5/5:30 to incorporate said changes.

Unfortunately, Aiden works in a class that has class on Fridays. Ashley doesn't. So we have some fantastic neighbors who are willing to step in and take turns watching her so I don't have to take her to physics with me (I already don't understand half the lecture, there would go the other half!) or miss class altogether. There's two other times this gets really sticky in the week but they are, again, willing to step up and help out. AND THEY'RE NOT GETTING PAID!!!

I have NEVER lived in such a community. Our last place was low income housing as well. There is no way I would have ever let my neighbors babysit let alone expected them to do it for free.

yay for people who are poor because they are students and NOT because they are making a lifestyle choice!!!!

philanthropy begins at home

http://borrowedlight.blogspot.com/2008/08/blog-book.html

http://www.nierecovery.com/

Follow these links, read about it, submit something and pass it on up. If it was my family I would want people to help so I'm doing my part. You've all written SOMETHING that's somewhat funny. That's the biggest requirement. I did it and I'm not very funny at all. But I read funny blogs. If you can make me laugh, you can make anyone laugh. Get to it!