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A space for fiends.

parenting teens

I can see why some quit.

Anything to avoid the heat

This weekend we were challenged to find anything entertaining to do away from the house that involved air conditioning or water.

Since everyone and their grandmother were on their way to the beach, thereby clogging our freeways and preventing us locals from actually availing ourselves of them when they're most enjoyable, we decided water should be had elsewhere. Saturday involved a trip to the pool at the office. Yes, indeed, Rebecca could actually be seen in a bathing suit in a public place. It's been about 10 years, but heat won out. After the pool, Anthony was kind enough to watch Nikolai so Melissa and I could go to a movie together. We saw Pirates 2, after a wonderful lunch/dinner at In Vino Veritas (for those of you lunchers who have not been to In Vino Veritas for dinner, I highly recommend it...it puts lunches there to shame). Melissa asked me what she could order on the menu that would be a small meal, and I responded saying that the meals were generally pretty small there and so she shouldn't worry about it too much. She was absolutely mortified when they brought her Medeterranean meal out and it was in a bowl about half as big as the table. For some reason she thought this was my fault.

On Sunday we skipped the pool adventure, and Anthony and I went to see a movie together. We saw Monster House, which I really don't recommend. I might have chuckled a few times, but it was mostly lacking in the general "entertainment" category. We had a great chuckle when I told Anthony he should work at taco bell. He'd have free food and his life would be so great (for those of you who don't know, taco bell is just about the only thing anthony will eat consistently), and his response was "Would you like fries with that?"

dsaoiiguencc

it seems my fingers have melted due to excessive heat exposure.

uhhhh

It's events like these that make me wonder if I really have just been staring at my computer screen for too long. Much like the dreaded "brain fart", where one forgets a word for a glaringly obvious or simple item like "door", times like these make me think really hard before ultimately coming to the conclusion that I'm not insane, and this really isn't supposed to happen.

Summer in the redwoods

For those of you curious about what kinds of insects we see here, here are a couple that were captured in the house. The first here was captured alive and well, the other was obviously dying. Anyone know what these two things are?

I don't know what came over me

I've never been a particularly patriotic person. I've never really made any sort of big deal out of the 4th of July. In fact, in the last 5 or so years my motivation to actually make it to a proper Fireworks viewing location has dwindled to nonexistent. My poor deprived children.
I have very fond memories of fireworks in my home town when growing up. July 4th was always a very exciting time for me, and of course at the root of this was the sheer excitement of watching things explode loudly. Even more exciting than the colorful display high in the sky was the fact that we actually got to light some ourselves. We got to watch the thrilling pyrotechnic display of colors and smoke and bottle-rockets. We got the thrill of cheating the dangers of explosives by running away just in the nick of time. The thrill of watching my father light it and worrying for a fleeting moment if he would make it through OK, or if he would regret that fateful night when he lost his right hand to a misbehaving rocket.
I have warming memories of climbing onto the roof on the back of our house with blankts and my family and curling up to watch the fireworks show, as impressive as it could be, for Delta.
Even still, I never made a big deal out of the 4th of July. Not until this year. Something came over me and I have no idea where it came from. I bought beautiful red white and blue balloons and blew them up myself (except for the giant 3 foot balloon, which was inflated with helium for me). I decorated the deck with balloons and even bought confetti and glittery body decorations to wear. I even went so far as to buy a flag to hang on the house. Granted, it was cardboard, but it was still the first flag I've ever actually owned.
Nikolai and I baked a very special cake for him. We even put a big yellow N on it. We baked a lemon cake with lemon frosting, little baby cakes. Lemon ones. I presented watermelon in a lovely fashion on serving dishes. I served chips and dips and veggies and ranch beautifully on serving dishes. I diced up fresh strawberries and we had strawberry shortcake, even though half of us weren't supposed to due to potential divurticulitis complications.

Perhaps I was trying to compensate for the lack of legal explosives with cake.

Miraculously I stumbled upon some "fireworks" being sold at Safeway. They weren't actually fireworks, but I tell ya they were the next best thing. They made very loud explosive like noises when "launched" and covered the deck with a beautiful and festive layer of confetti.
Unfortunately Nikolai and Matt were both sick, and I was coming down with what I think must be the third phase of this stupid virus that still has me sick, so unfortunately it wasn't quite as upbeat as it could have been. You'd never know from our level of enjoyment, though. I think everybody except Anthony had a wonderful time.
We finished off the evening with a viewing of the very loveable movie Paulie. Even Nikolai joined in for much of the viewing before he decided we were done and got up to change the input on the TV for us so we could check out the highly entertaining static on the other input setting.

Dear Anonymous,

This blog is not for you.
This blog is for me. This blog is for my own reflection, and for my own purposes 10 years from now. This blog is a journal of my life, and who will care about that more than I (arguably God could care more, but something tells me that in 20 years God won't need my blog to remember my experiences of the past).
This blog is information for my family and friends who do actually care to read the content.
This blog is for posterity. I believe my children will love to read it.
This blog was not intended for you.
If you are interested in reading, please continue to do so and feel free to comment as much as you would like. But if this blog is indeed boring for you, then please cease reading. I have no interest in your ideas of what Christ or God would or would not want from me.
I honestly do not appreciate such unjustified and unwelcomed criticism about my life from one so very ignorant about it and its paths and jewels.

Finally, I am fundamentally against such pushy religious recruit tactics such as this. I understand that it is most likely that at the root of your faith and belief in God is an utter desire to spread your happiness and joy, but do take it from someone at the receiving end of your words: It is pushy, critical, judgemental and unwelcomed by *many*.
I do not believe in a God who rules tyrannically, who would expect His children to be driven by fear (think: hell)
More importantly, I do not believe in a God who would make it your business which God I believe in or why.
Even more importantly, I tend to refrain from discussing such emotionally charged subjects such as God on my blog. While it might be one of the most important facets of life and being it is not my intent to raise anyone's hackles.

Thank you for listening.

Anonymous's original comment on Devolution blog post

new month, new post

I'm totally failing in my effort to keep this thing updated. I have so much to write about, and so little time in which to write. For right now I have something far more important to write about that can't be broadcast to the world, and so my meaningful blog posts will just have to wait until I have more time to write about them.

ToDo: Blog about 4th of July
ToDo: Blog about the return of Bird

ToDay: Blog about a cute quote from Nikolai
The other day I was talking with Carl in his back yard whilst Nikolai romped and chattered to himself. Carl commented offhandedly to Nikolai that his mom was a smart person (cookie?). He went on to say that I had a brain in my head. This caught Nikolai's attention, which we all know is not an easy feat, and he stared at me for a few seconds. Noticing his obvious confusion prompted me to point at my forehead and say "Right in here. I have a brain right in here!", to which Nikolai replied "We'll help you get it out, Mama!"