Why I plant a garden

Why do I have strawberry plants in my backyard? We ate 4 pounds of strawberries in 2 days—actually only a little over 24 hours. Good thing I bought 6 pounds at the grocery (they were on sale!)

Divine Justice?

Joe & I have recently taken up watching 24. It came with my DVR. Prior to the DVR I refused to get attached to any show in which you had to watch weekly to understand because the chances that I would be home and available to watch it each week were slim at best. With the DVR it doesn't matter if you are home or not—the magical computer records it for you. On Sunday night we started our 24 marathon. We were behind at least 3 episodes and I was starting to hear things about the ones we had missed so we needed to watch them in order for them to be still entertaining and not ruined. We didn't get through all the episodes on Sunday night because "someone" started dozing off—the morning bird in our relationship—hey! I'd been up since 4am so I thought I had a good excuse. The night owl was ready to watch the last one. In any case, we decided to finish the last one on Monday—just in time to have another one air and be recorded. We settled in—me on the couch, Joe folding clothes! Yep, I was being completely lame. In addition to being lame, I decided to comment on how impressed I was that he could fold clothes and watch 24 at the same time. He stated that I should be impressed by his multi-tasking. At this point I couldn't resist to "one up him" and let him know that not only would I have been able to fold clothes and watch 24, but that I could also do it while talking on the phone and disciplining the kids. Remember—I'm still sitting on the couch doing nothing but controlling the remote. We decided to start the show and through a serious of very, extremely, unfortunate events, I somehow managed to delete the last episode that we needed to watch. Evidently I can't multi-task quite the way I thought I could. Pride comes before….

Maybe I like my new Word after all

When I had problems with my computer a few weeks back I had to take of my entire Microsoft Office and reload it. Joe thought it would be nice if I had a newer version of the software on my computer, so he loaded it for me. I've not been a fan mainly because it is different and I've had to relearn how to do some things (like open a document!) I'm not a computer genius, but I'm fairly fluent so I think the learning curve on the new software should have been a lot less than it was. (interpretation: they shouldn't have changed it; seriously, it took me five minutes to figure out how to view my slide show in children's church on Sunday when we were getting ready to sing) Anyway, this morning I realized by complete accident that I could post to my blog directly from Word. So this is a test post. If you are reading it, then it worked. I don't think I can do pictures, but it certainly opens up some options concerning fonts, etc.

I've been dreaming of going to the beach lately so I'm afraid you are going to have to put up with the palm tree in the background for awhile.

The faces of Nathan

Happy Easter (a little late)

We don't get the opportunity to get a family picture taken very often because, well, there's not usually anyone around to take it. And if there is someone around, we usually aren't dressed up fancy (well, as fancy as we get). Happy Easter!

Only a boy would say or even think such a thing...

Today at lunch I was admiring my sons and noticing how much they look alike. I don't normally notice this because their personalities are so very different--maybe you can pick up on that a little from the above picture. Anyway, I commented to them "Wow, boys, you look just alike. You even have the same color skin (both are creamy white)." Nathan pipes up "Yeah, even our butts are alike."

Maybe there is hope for them

I once heard someone say that being a skilled seamstress skipped generations. If that is the case, I didn't have a chance at being a seamstress the moment I was born. My mom is a very, very skilled seamstress--she made my wedding gown and so many other things--too many to count. I can't convince her to sell anything even though I would be more than willing to run the business side of things if she ever did. Anyway, the last time Grandma Horn visited she bought some patterns and fabric for the girls and their dolls. So when Grandma Snow visited last week she brought her sewing machine and went to work. As you can see, the kids were absolutely fascinated by the whole thing. I do have a sewing machine; however, as you can see with their awe of Grandma Snow's machine, mine hasn't made it out of the closet in awhile.

It obviously had a motor so Nathan was all over that and tried to figure out how it all worked.

Maybe there is hope for my children--they are the next generation afterall. Here's hoping my girls' spouses don't have to buy their own sewing kits to sew on their buttons like mine did.

In the last 24 hours I have ....

• realized that I'm completely out of toilet paper and paper towels
• run out of kitchen dish clothes twice and done 2 loads of white clothes
• done 6 loads of clothes (this doesn't count the ones that my wonderful husband did)
• cleaned up glass from a broken light bulb
• 5 minutes after cleaning up the light bulb glass, cleaned up broken pottery from one of our "collected" coffee mugs
• unclogged a very clogged toilet (somehow we went through a whole role of toilet paper in one of our bathrooms yesterday--maybe that's why I have none left!)
• made my new favorite soup-black bean (Thanks Garden Girl for the recipe); my kids hate it
• made at least 12 peanut butter and honey sandwiches
• cleaned up my boys' room 3 times (this doesn't count the time that they cleaned it last night)
• developed a nice little cold
• started my (oops, our) puppy on house training boot camp. I don't think she's going to like me by the end of the day
• cleaned both of our bathrooms
• did three loads of dishes and two sinkfulls
• mailed off our taxes--ugh
• decided that the calendar must be wrong and it is really the end of February instead of the middle of April--I got my gloves back out today

The Windy City

I started this post a week ago and got significantly distracted by spring break and a visit from my family and Easter. We started out our spring break with about 2 inches of snow on the ground and a nice gusty wind. So we decided to embrace the wind and go to the windy city. It was the first time the kids had gone to Chicago so we kept the visit simple and short so we wouldn't completely overwhelm them. First stop was the American Girl store (well, actually we hit the Hershey store first but only briefly as we decided we'd go back right before we went home). The girls enjoyed shopping for their dolls.

Next was the Disney Store so Nathan could get his fill of Mickey Mouse then we were off to the Lego store at the other end of the Miracle Mile. The kids were mighty troopers as we walked the whole way. The tall buildings, honking horns and cranes building new buildings kept them distracted from the cold. Here's the boys outside the Lego store with the Lego man.
On the way back we picked up the promised chocolate from the Hershey's store and collapsed in the car. Nathan got to see Ohara out his window before his eyes just couldn't stay open anymore.