Incognito

It's red ribbon week at school this week. Today was dress like a spy day. Here is Savannah's attire for the day:

Secret Agent Teensie!

Oh crap...

Yesterday, while driving to work and brainstorming ways to afford all of the kids upcoming activities and still be able to purchase them something for Christmas, my car "binged" at me. I looked down at the dashboard to see the check engine light lit up. And then the car started violently chugging and lurching.

Crap! Crap! Double crap!

I was located somewhere near the middle of nowhere and not within walking distance of anything. I figured my options were to flag down the next trucker or to chug and lurch my way to town. I chose option 3, call dad.

He recommended I chug and lurch my way to our mechanics, if possible.
So, I did. All the while praising my car for each successful intersection we made it through.
"You can do it, little car. You can do it."

Once I arrived at the mechanics, I sat in the car for a minute rehearsing my performance to accurately describe what my car's problem was. I'm not sure why a car problem can only be accurate conveyed through a game of charades coupled with some Grammy worthy sound effects, but that's the way it is.
I left my keys with the mechanic, prayed for an inexpensive repair, and hopped into my dad's truck to be transported to work.

At the end of my work day, my dad was kind enough to pick me up and help me figure out how in the world I was going to get the kids picked up from school clear back in Arlington.

Well, surprise, surprise. My car repair was not only going to relatively inexpensive, but it was already done! Hooray.

Then, my dad told me that the mechanic wanted to know if I was single.
What?
That's right. He thought I was really good lookin'. And wanted to know if I was available. And thought the best thing to do was ask my dad about me. Keep in mind that my mechanic is about the same age as my dad.

I was laughing about this with my sister later when she asked me, "Well, is he good looking?"
"Not really."
"Well, is he rich?"
"I don't think so."

Hmmm.
He could, however, save me a lot of money in car repairs. This may require further contemplation.

Threat Level Raised to Orange!

I have 2 dogs. Boris and Fillmore. Both are complete idiots. Boris is a Great Dane and Fillmore is a Pommerat (aka Mutt).

Today, while I was peacefully reading a book, it seems our house was suddenly under attack. Fillmore raised the alert. We are currently at threat level orange!


Squirrel attack!


Well, maybe not attack as much as squirrels are foraging around in our trees and yard for delicious nuts. And, if they can torment Fillmore during this process, all the better. And he hates those vermin skulking around his yard. And the squirrels love to flick their tails in his direction, just to taunt him.


Squirrels do have an evil streak. I think that's why I like them. They get quite irritated with us if we come out of the house forcing them to abandon their ground activities and flee to the trees. We often find ourselves being pelted with whatever the squirrels can get their little squirrel hands on to chuck in our direction. And, cussing us out, I'm sure. There is definitely a lot of unfriendly squirrel talk going on.


Anyway, Fillmore has a deep deep hatred for the squirrels and this is how my moronic dog lets us know that squirrel danger is upon us:

You can see at the end how concerned Boris is with this potential threat.

Donations Welcome

I'm looking into contacting my bank to see if they offer a low interest loan for parent's of middle schoolers. Mine is bleeding me dry.

Myles has outgrown every piece of clothing from last year including his winter coat. And, to make matters worse, he has decided that Target is not the coolest place to find his winter wardrobe and is demanding name brand clothing. (I knew this day was coming, I have just been trying to delay it as long as possible.)

He wanted to play fall baseball this year and even though it was a HUGE expense, I decided to let him do it. Of course, he loved it. Now, he's planning to play basketball this season and his first team meeting is on Monday. Guess what? He has to have basketball shoes and dress clothes.

This past weekend he was invited to go to a lock-in with a friend of his. That was $35. He had planned to attend the first middle school dance yesterday. Another $5. (He ended up not going. So, quite a hefty savings I got there.) But, he did attend every single home football game and required refreshments from the concession stand, so savings cancelled out.

Now, next weekend, he has been invited to go to a Kansas City Chiefs game with a friend of his. That is going to be super fun for him and I couldn't deny him the opportunity, but more expense.

All of this is coupled with Savannah's elementary school needs like Cheer Night, food drive, classroom parties and activities. And she needed a Halloween costume.

She had initially decided to be an iPod, which was going to be such an easy costume to make, but about 2 weeks ago, she changed her mind and wanted to be a devil. A store bought devil. (Crap)

But, while out searching for her costume, she found this rocker girl costume and liked it even better.

But it cost $35 and was made out of the crappiest costume material available. I thought, we could definitely make this for less than $35. (Of course, I forgot that my free time available for such a project was microscopic.) So, when Savannah's friend's mom sent me a message on Thursday asking if Savannah would like to spend the night at their house on Saturday and then go to the trick or treat event at the zoo on Sunday, I nearly had a panic attack. My main problem was that I couldn't find a jean skirt anywhere in the entire city that would make her costume any less expensive. Plus we were going to be cutting slits in it.

Crap.

Crap.

Crap.

Until I stumbled upon a website with step by step instructions on how to turn a pair of jeans into a jean skirt. It only took me two tries to get it looking right, but I did it. And it really didn't take much time at all.

Then, we hand dyed some gauze, sewed it onto the front of a black tshirt, and cut out the spooky face. We found an old stocking cap, cut it up and stitched it back up with purple stitches. And Voila. A zombie rocker.

And, she's even got the zombie walk mastered.

She has black hairspray and face paint to be added for the full zombie effect, but I'll post the completed look on Halloween.

As for the Middle School Parenting loan, I'll let you know if I find anything out. Or, if you'd like to make a donation to my cause, I can send you my paypal information. :)

Book Signing

The kids and I were able to meet Patricia Polacco today. She was doing a signing at the Bookworm. The kids both did really neat projects on Patricia Polacco when they were in second grade and I was so excited to see that she was coming to town. Here we are:

She even brought the Keeping Quilt with her! I guess she takes the Meteor to the schools she visits for the kids to see as well. Very neat. She is going to be doing another presentation at the Omaha Public Library on Monday. I think Savannah will take her poster she made as her second grade project in to show to Patricia.

Then, we'll be going to see a presentation by Gordon Korman on Tuesday at the Omaha Community Playhouse. He happens to be the author of some of my favorite childhood books, the Bruno and Boots books.

David Sedaris is coming on the 25th, too. So many authors! Yay! I'm going to be broke!

Would You Rather...

Have you ever played the game Would You Rather...? Well, if you haven't you should. It's very fun. My kids love it. We had a blast playing it this past weekend.

Savannah pulled a challenge card and had to choose a challenge to do. She chose to let someone write Goof on her face and sit that way for the next several turns. Since having your face written upon with lipstick is so fun, all future challenge cards were modified to contain a similar challenge. Here are the glorious results:

(Just an FYI, it's a bit labor intensive to remove this much lipstick from your face.)

This past weekend, we also purchased our first ever loaf of Pretzel Bread. I had never heard of pretzel bread before but since we make homemade pretzels all the time, we decided this was something we had to try. And it was really good. So, we made some. It was super delicious and I may have to make it daily. I'll have to post the recipe later because blogger isn't letting me paste it in and typing it out is not an option. But here is a picture of the results:

I've also gotten a little crafting done recently. Here are a couple of wreaths that I made this week. I'm a little fixated on candy corn. Can you tell?

Now are you craving some candy corn?

Guess what I found...

While Savannah was in her dance class, Myles and I went around the corner to kill some time in the Dollar General store. While walking around in there, I spotted these...

I picked these two up for my nieces. And, once Savannah got out of her class she decided she needed one too. Yipee! That meant I wouldn't have to go back and get one for myself. Savannah let me color a page in hers that very night. I momentarily travelled back in time to when I was 8 years old on a Saturday morning watching the Smurfs, coloring, and enjoying a delicious bowl of cap'n crunch cereal. Ahh, the good old days.