K is for Kerfuffle.

ker·fuf·fle/kərˈfəfəl/Noun: A commotion or fuss. 'There is a kerfuffle in Hailey's brain.'


Plates -- screwed up 3 this MORNING, is this going to work?
Calendar
Plane tickets? GET ME AWAY!!
Kitchen
Laundry
Mow the lawn
Sell stuff in Garage
Office
Bills
Paint with Julian, solo
Taekwondo Black belt papers
  K & J write commitments
Bills
Get gas
Change oil
Clean out car
Take a shower?

Mr. Rogers, the Beloved and Missed.

--> FACEBOOK CONVERSATION <--

ML: I am looking OH SO ATTRACTIVE with tissues stuffed up my nostrils. Gotta love spring colds/allergies/whatever it is.

H: Ha! I was just wondering, sadly (C has a fire going), if I could slither up the stairs unnoticed. My puffy eyes, runny nose and blotchy skin must look so lovely. I've been crying -- reading about Mr. Rogers! Meanwhile, my kitten allergies have kicked in. I HAD to teach Miss M how to hold the sweet, furry, purring kitty! For a long time ... As Mr. Rogers would say to You, "I love you just the way you are!" -- I say it too M!

about an hour ago · 

ML: Well aren't you just sweet (as are the furry, purring kitties). But why have you been crying over Mr. Rogers?

38 minutes ago

H: Oh, I LOVE Mr. Rogers! I've been looking for something for a very special young man's 15th (!) birthday next Friday ... 

The more I read about Mr. Rogers the more I admire him. He was a man of complete integrity & humility, & unlike so many famous men, he was consistent & true his entire life. He cared passionately for children & what is Best for their positive growth; this is so sorely lacking in 2010. If K would have Mr. Rogers as a role model & not men with tricked out names like: Tiger, Jay-z or Jesse James, if he is 9/10ths like Mr. Rogers, I will die a happy mother.

When Mr. Rogers passed away K & I cried together.

I'm actually surprised at how strongly I feel for him. Just read that he showed up in Eddie Murphy's dressing room at Saturday Night Live when EM was making fun of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood (with drug addicts etc.). When EM saw him, naturally he swore [great] and, naturally, Mr. Rogers hugged him.

I see a lot of Christ's example in him, the humility, intelligence, deep spirituality & love of children.

(Hey, thanks for a blog post here!)

Happiness us having warn p
........................................................
It is nifty to be able to post onto this blog from my phone... but perhaps irresponsible to do so in a sleepy stupor. My allergies (to 2 adorable kittens in our garage and really all over our house via children who snuggle with kittens while wearing pajamas, the children, not the kittens) are killing me. I'm taking all sorts of meds suggested by Dr. V. Johnson, some that might make me extra tired and! C just about killed me by doing something spontaneously funny, which kicked my asthma on via a laughing fit. All that on top of an exciting CLOSING night of K in Annie! Wow.

What I was trying to say is:
Happiness is a pair of warm knee-hi's that stay up.

K, the VERY beautiful and very bald was brilliant. Closing night was bittersweet since a lot of bugs had been worked out. It seemed that at times the pianist dragged, which K said was the case. Great cast. So motivated and happy! Lovely director.

ANNIE!

November 12, 13 & 14
7:00 p.m.
$5.00 Adults
$3.00 Students & Children 

Fabulous!

K is Fabulous. Beautiful, lovely and bald.

Wish there could be a school theater with a WORKING sound system though.

Stamakajuna

N is for Nice Note!

A major reason that K is going to the school he is going to is because of the beautiful & kind secretary at the front office. A school can be judged on test scores, design/maintenance of the campus and principal, but perhaps the best measurements of a school are the library, students & teachers, and perhaps most importantly the people who greet you at the front desk.

Linda is fantastic. Incredible. She knows the students' names, all of them! And to some degree their schedules. There are almost 1000 kids there! I am in awe. She is so with-it and encouraging and patient with me and my foibles.

StMaKaJuNa know that signing endless papers is/was not my favorite chore. I couldn't figure out why I needed to write notes that could say anything and that was good enough. Finally I decided to write/draw anything and have some fun.

And as with so many things that I once hated, I have learned to embrace, though not love (how cheep!) and then personalize, some might even say perfect. Lunch making, laundry (NOT perfected), seasonal decorating are some examples.

When it comes to NOTE WRITING for K to give to Linda I feel that I have reached a new level of mastery. Linda might say perfection, but she is an appreciative and generous audience. She loves my notes and has saved them for the last several years. When possible I pre-glitter them, use bright colors and illuminate her name. They are never dull.

The above note is one of my favorites. I was caught in the car, late, without paper, colors, glitter. Just some dim wit and a spiral note book with a few scant drawings in it. This is what I came up with. It made her smile. AND! K got away with being late, again.

When we contemplated, discussed switching schools to W, where J, N & M are going I paused and said, "What about Linda?!"

K's eyes twinkled. He decided to stay one more year. This has been a good decision. His grades are great, he has made new friends and (!) he is playing Daddy Warbucks in Annie! [cue the music: "I think I'm gonna like it here!" Woot! Woot!]

Hello from San Francisco! I'm at the Apple Store ... charging my now faster phone and debating the merits of a new computer... hmmmm. There are many merits of a new computer...

FYI To add to the poem below add:

bird poop in the brunette's hair

Washed out in a bookstore's sink

Dead car battery.

Love the tattooed and pierced AAA men that came to jump our battery

Gama, quoting an irate female shopper swore like a sailor, just to make me gasp, which she did!

K will be playing Daddy Warbucks

C is doing the 72 hour kits!!! Wahoo!

N & I played on the beach this morning.

Love SF radio.

Someday, I'd edit these posts better. Just the facts. Just the facts.

M is for Missing ... K & J!

K is coming home on Tuesday night! Wa-hooo! I haven't laughed once, not once! since he has been at camp! Boo hoo hoo. Well, maybe once... I miss his silliness, having his friends around, his singing, talking about the news with him and the cello! He broke his right middle finger at camp, not sure how that will affect his cello-ing. His hand is taped up like a sharp shooter.

Tonight N & M were singing a song, well, 2 songs, not at all similar to each other though sung at the same time ... for J! They miss him the Most they say. He is both of their [?] best friend and their favorite brother. I can write this because I know that tomorrow they will say that K is their favorite ... what a fickle family of favorites. I miss his sweetness, his spontaneous kisses, his imagination and believe it or not his whistling! I also miss reading to him.

We've saved a few weeks worth of the funny pages for them both to fight over!

I don't miss the extra laundry, which I am getting 100% caught up on -- now that I've rinsed my last tie dye ever. School starts Wednesday for J! (C & I are really happy for him. The new school will be fantastic!) I'll just drop J & N off and take K & J's bags from camp directly to the Soap Box Laundromat and let Joyce work her magic -- then I'll come home and incinerate the boys' shoes. :P

House Update: My goal was to have the house "landed" before school starts. Every room.

GARAGE: Getting more and more there. H Bike, huge fan, wire equipt., tie dye materials, clay etc. now have a place to call their own. The entire space is now overrun with school supplies & donations, and of course the tub/misc. stuff to sell. Tie dye and clay are neat and tidy and put away. Still need to move and sell or donate the tub, then I can park INSIDE the garage. Huge sofa-holding-cardboard boxes are gone. Donation stuff needs to go.

DINING ROOM: Almost useable for working in. Will have Project party to celebrate the landed room. Sewing projects are in boxes, fabric is folded and tidy, do-dads are in boxes. To mend pile needs attention and to be done, at night.

LAUNDRY ROOM: So close! The floor is visible (a flood helped). Must iron all the wadded up stuff and fabric for quilt edges. Moved it into the family room, which violates a new rule: All laundry stays in Laundry Room -- didn't want to get dye on it as I rinsed out the tie dye. Amazing amount of clothes, table cloths, towels, getting rid of lots of it actually.

MASTER BEDROOM: Perfection. Simple. Empty. Clean.

ENTRY WAY: Clean. Counter useable for the "don't forget as you go out the door" spot! L------ville is up and looks fun, complete with new architecture, touched up buildings, stars and N's new fort. :)

B is for Big Brother...

If only all Big Brothers were this nice. K looks rather Orwellian here, not his true character. Menacing, prying, you know, evil.

He is at Birch Creek Service Ranch with J and we are missing him, them. And yet, the house is strangely quiet... which is appreciated!

K will be in 9th grade taking Drama 2, Adv. Orchestra, Adv. Choir. Oh, and Girls 101.

J will be in 6th, at a new school full of projects and field trips. He wants to volunteer at a dog kennel, maybe the pound. So sweet.

O has got to be for Oz.

Last Day of School

J sings a song... I'll add that once the bum wakes up. It is the last day of "home school" as well.
Jules thinks home school was the right thing to do. Me? I'm not so sure. Home school works if ALL the children are at home. That means NO ONE has parent teacher conferences, no one has field trips, projects etc. that take the home school's teacher and principal away all the time.

The above is a multi-armed elephant that K did for his Spanish ? class. Also is his LATE note. I will miss Linda, in the front office. She has a file of my notes. I have fun with glitter and markers...

J & the L-bow.

Before:

This is FUD and J having a great day skiing in the spring... springy snow.
After:

This is K and J. J broke his elbow... in the springy snow. The slush grabbed him! Threw him up in the air and then slammed him into the slush, without mercy. The damnthing is, that elbow, as the slushy snow knew, was already injured by a dramatic bounce on a trampoline.

The first picture is from the top of Sundance and the second is from the most beautiful one room school ever. It is at Camp Floyd -- 25 miles from Lehi.

Small Talk & K Cake

Hey K!~ It's a spoon, not a shovel!!!

Tomorrow is K's 14th birthday! We are celebrating tonight with a triple layer lemon cake (Ashley's recipe). (Giving Stephanie H the day off.)

While mixing and heating and stirring and removing, N asked, "Mom, what does 'remove' mean?"

This is happening a lot lately. As N reads more and more, he is coming across words that don't add up to either his experiences or maturity. It is clear that his language/vocabulary is missing some critical and basic words. I need to keep a list. Review them with him.

The kitchen conversation continued:

H: M, what do you want to be when you grow up?

M: I want to be the same like S [sister S], cause she sings on the radio. And I want to drive too. And I'll drive safe.

And tres chic, like Mlle. S, to boot!

I've been making a lot of these flower pompoms lately for our entryway. They are from a great $10.00/5 Martha Stewart kit at ?! Wal-mart.

Y is for Yuck.

La de da. This post is for Misha! :P
A short while back C and I went shopping together. Well, I probably dragged him along for "one or two things"... Allen's (a locally/Utah owned grocery store) is a "one or two" store. You can easily leave that store with the one or two things that you need -- unlike Costco, the $100 Store. That is, unless you just happen to need mesh canvas in assorted colors. Who needs colored mesh canvas?! Guess you can't have too much of that hanging about. They sell all sorts of unrelated things, especially for a grocery store.

So, we are strolling down the isles and the vertical cheese cake caught my eye... I commented that perhaps this (see below) isn't the best way to sell cheese cake. Needed to take a picture of it for K since he HATES cheese cake and always has. When I showed him the picture he noticed that it is right next to the (unrefrigerated) vitamin drinks. Good point. Mmm.

As I got closer to take the picture, C noticed something different... Yuck. Caramel Apple Cheese Cake, now not only vitamin packed, but botulism packed too! Care for some spores with your dessert?

Scary.

u is for unsystematic

Art by M on my iPhone, emailed to me.

K and his friend.

The Celestial Kingdom resembles my glittered filled desk.
Being only Terrestrial, this took a long while to clean up... there is still glitter everywhere. Shame. This was from the middle of December.

Hot glue and glitter are a good combination. Take care though, this is a Hazardous combination. Great for fast glitter application. (Thanks Hiedi for the inspiration.) Remember: glitter heats up!
This was a card for my tech-savvy Dad's most recent birthday... we made a short puppet show and sent it to him via YouTube, so he could watch it on his Apple.

K art.

:: Holiday Break :: 2

Hi H,

Between Half Moon Bay and Pigeon Point Lighthouse, the San Mateo beaches we saw last week were San Gregorio State Beach, Pomponio State Beach, Pescadero State Beach, and Bean Hollow State Beach. The kids went digging, running and getting wet and sandy at Pomponio Beach. We saw the 'green flash' there. The Walgreen C.D. photos are from there and the Pigeon Point Lighthouse.
You can look up Green Flash on Wikipedia.

xxx, ooo, hugs,
Mom


Just right for her new Facebook pic.


Hey Kids! This is a Ph-one-boo-th! Phonebooth! Kinda like what Superman used... you know what I mean? No.

More Bars in More Places, 1

H is for Homework.

K is taking his school work much more seriously this year.