Wordless Wednesday- Doorman and Family

On The Way To The Store

This morning when I headed out to the store for milk I grabbed my camera to get some pictures of the snow. We won't be seeing any for the next three years so I thought I better take some pictures. Even with the cold it was a nice walk. I actually kinda like the snow, but I think in the future I would prefer to visit the snow for short periods of time rather than live with it all winter.

Stump the Cook, Malawi Style

I am addicted to NPR. Since I am in Germany I can't just tune in to 89.1 like I did back home. However, thanks to modern technology, I can download podcasts of my favorite shows. One of my favorite shows is Splendid Table, a really cool cooking show I like to listen to when I am cooking dinner. At one point in the show the host, Lynn Rosetto Kasper, plays a game show called "Stump the Cook." A caller names five ingredients they really have in their kitchen then Lynn has to create a dish they would actually eat.

The episode I was listening to tonight originally aired on January 9th. The caller for the stump the cook segment was calling from Malawi. No seriously she really was! Not only that she was a peace corps volunteer who had no fridge and would be cooking over an open flame. Tough challenge for Lynn, but she pulled it off. What I really want to know is if she is some place that has no fridge and not stove, how is it that she had a phone to call the states, and how is she listening to the Splendid Table?

Good Mom or Bad Mom?

I am trying to decide if I am a genius or just a bad mom. You see mornings have been a problem around here since the day Alonzo started kindergarten. I don't understand how a kid that can crawl out of bed at o-dark-thirty on a Saturday morning to watch cartoons can take so long to get up dressed and ready for school during the week. Now multiply that time by three since his little brothers are school aged as well. We have gradually moved the time they get up earlier and earlier until they are getting up well over an hour before they need to leave for school and we are still struggling to get out the door on time. Then one sleep deprived morning last week in a fit of desperation I announced that if they would just get ready by 7:30 they could watch Scooby Doo before we went to school. Like magic I suddenly had 3 neatly dressed kids ready to watch TV. They even made their beds and cleared the breakfast dishes without me nagging. They asked if they were ready by 7:30 could they watch Scooby tomorrow? I said sure, why not? For a week now they have gotten up dressed, made their beds, brushed their teeth, cleared the table and appear slightly earlier each morning ready for a Scooby cartoon. There has only been one day where they didn't make it and they got stuck reading until it was time to leave. This morning I even heard Colin telling his brothers to "Pick up the pace." So my question is am I a genius or am I a terrible mom for letting the kids watch TV during the school week?

Things Kids Say

We were driving home from school today and everyone was singing along with the stereo:

If everybody had an ocean
Across the U.S.A.
Then everybody'd be surfin'
Like Californ-i-a
You'd see 'em wearin' their baggies
Huarachi sandals, too
A bushy bushy blonde hairdo
Surfin' U.S.A.

Alonzo suddenly yells, "I love this song! Bob Dylan is a really good singer."

Wordless Wednesday- Dreaming of Warmer Days

New Year's Resolutions 2010

I decided this year I wasn't going to make any resolutions, I was just going to get on with my life. I guess I didn't tell my subconscious. I have several new things going on in my life and it seems I have waited until the new year to begin so I might as well label them resolutions and get on with the year.

New Year's Resolutions 2010
1. Get organized! We are heading to Malawi this summer so getting everything organized before packout will make our life so much easier both when we pack up and when we unpack.
2. Get rid of all the junk in the house or at least most of it. This really goes hand and hand with number one. We have so much junk in the house and as much as I want to blame it all on the kids a good bit of that clutter belongs to David and myself.
3. Get in shape! OK this is the same thing that has been on every list since I was about 23. This year we are moving to Malawi (I said that already, didn't I?). It has a nice, warm climate. Which means swimming more than once a year. I LOVE swimming but right now I really don't want to be seen in public in a swimsuit. I have until the end of June to get in swimsuit shape. Plus I really want to be able to keep up with the kids.
4. Make the children help out more around the house. It used to drive me crazy when I was teaching and my students had no chores at home, but my own kids have next to no chores. Well they HAD next to no chores but as of this week they have chores. They are not very happy with me at the moment but they will get over it and more importantly when they eventually leave home they will be able to take care of themselves because they will know how to cook, clean, and do laundry. After all, unless they are very very lucky they will not have a maid when they grow up. In case you are wondering YES we will have a maid in Malawi but make no mistake she will be my maid, not the kids!

That's it. It is a short list. There are more things going on but they are mostly short term projects over in a month or two. These four items are all yearlong things I struggle with on a regular basis. Apparently I am a disorganized couch potato and packrat who likes to spoil her kids. Maybe by this time next year I will be a organized hard body with disciplined, obedient kids who are happy to help out around the house.

Monica it's NEVER too cold!

This post is for my friend Monica. She made the comment the other day that is was too cold to go jogging. She lives in Texas. I guess it is a good thing she doesn't live in Germany or she wouldn't be able to use that as an excuse!

Duck Pond Today

We went to the duck pond today to go sledding but ended up playing on the ice with everyone else. Grayson spent his time between sliding across the ice where it had been swept and dusting the snow off looking for frozen fish. We are not actually in the picture above but almost everyone in the picture is walking on water, frozen water that is.

Wii Fit Plus

Well I took the fitness test on Wii Fit Plus it was better, told me I had a Wii fit age of 49 which is better but still much older than my real age. Sigh. Better get exercising.

Wii are Old, Well I Am Anyway

David and I took the Wii fitness test from Wii sports. Apparently I have robbed the cradle. It pegged David at an Wii fitness age of 26 and I have a Wii fitness age of 80. Yikes he is young and Wow am I old. I guess the first New Year's Resolution will be to get in better shape than an 80 year old!

Christmas Eve 2009

So what does a Texan do at Christmas time? Eat tamales! What to do if you are far away from Texas at Christmas time? Make your own tamales and invite friends over to help eat them. Which is exactly what we did. We made 12 dozen tamales, a pot of chili con carne, a pot of beans because some people like beans in their chili, bought some Big Red (God bless who ever is charge of the commissary!) and then invited everyone from Dave's office to stop by this afternoon after work. Of course some people are out of town, some people are busy, but some showed up and we ate, talked, laughed, and had a blast. I think this may be a new holiday tradition.

Wordless Wednesday- Christmas Kitty

Derailed Again

Today we were supposed to be in Holland at the Christmas Market in Velvet cave. The entire market is held underground in caves excavated when the castle was built around the year 1050. The weather isn't cooperating though. This weekend the temps were down in the single digits (fahrenheit). Sunday it snowed and after talking to some friends who had been out on the road between Frankfurt and Wiesbaden we decided to call it off to be on the safe side. The sad part is since this is our last year in Germany we are unlikely to ever make it the market but you never know.

Today instead of driving to the Christmas market we are hanging out at home. Meat is cooking for the tamales later this week. I am working on assembling the gingerbread houses so they can be decorated tomorrow, catching up on all the cleaning and laundry that didn't get done last week, and of course we took advantage of the snow and did some sledding.

This Week Has NOT Gone As Planned

This week was supposed to be a busy productive week. I was supposed to get all the presents wrapped, the house cleaned, some of the holiday cooking done up ahead, conquer the mountain of laundry, the menu for Christmas Eve and Christmas day finalized and the grocery shopping finished so I wouldn't have to be out there in the chaos next week. This was the last week before the kids would be off for the holidays. I had so much to do.

What did I actually accomplish? Well I have washed every towel, sheet, and blanket in the house, some of them twice or even three times and the floor especially between the kids bedroom and the toilet has been mopped repeatedly, other than that I survived this week and that is quite enough. If you are a facebook friend you already know what happened, but for the rest of you what happened was the stomach bug that destroyed my week. This nasty bug swept through our household and wrecked everyone's plans.

Poor Grayson was the first victim. He came in to our room shortly after 2 Monday morning. I woke just in time to hear him announce "Mommy my tummy hurts." Then things got ugly, not to mention very very smelly. Dave scooped him up and ran to the bathroom while I scrubbed the remains of dinner from the night before out of our of the carpet. And that was that for sleep on Monday. Dave drove the Alonzo and Colin to school because there was no way I was putting a barfing 5 year old in my van. By eleven o'clock Grayson was exhausted and slept for hours. Dave had taken the day off and so we took a nap and watched a movie together.

Tuesday he was feeling better so off to school he went. I went to the farmers market to pick up some hand dipped beeswax candles and fresh veggies. I cleaned house to remove the lingering nasty smell and did lots of laundry. Also made cookies for kids Christmas parties. Thought I was back on schedule. Until about 11 that night when Alonzo showed up in our room. Since I was still awake I was able to get him pointed at the toilet before he blew. Minutes later David heard Colin upstairs. He found that both boys beds were...well nasty would cover it and Colin was in the same shape as Alonzo. About two a.m. I shoved David in to bed since he had already taken Monday off there was no way he would be taking Wednesday off. I spent the rest of the night taking care of one boy or another and washing sheets and blankets. (To my neighbors--sorry about that I wouldn't normally run the washer in the middle of the night but it was an emergency!)

Wednesday passed in a blur of unpleasant sounds and smells. I remember opening the upstairs windows only to have it start snowing. I just let it snow into the room because our apartment is concrete construction with radiators and no ventilation or fresh air circulation unless you open a window which means once a smell is in the house it stays until you open a window. Lighting a candle just wasn't going to cut it. Don't worry the boys weren't cold, they were both downstairs in sleeping bags on the floor as I had run out of clean sheets and blankets and it takes my dryer at least two cycles to dry anything so laundry is a slow process. When Dave came home I mumbled "I need to make cupcakes." and then I think I passed out. By that time I had been up over 36 hours.

Thursday I was still a little out of it but I did manage to make it to the commissary to get groceries, but sadly not the stuff for the Holiday dinners so I will back there next week. Oh well, I will just have to stop in at the book store to grab a new book and an eggnog latte, darn the luck. I also managed to make it to Grayon's holiday party at school. David had baked cupcakes the night before while I slept so I was in good shape for that, even remembered the camera. Thursday wasn't over though, Dave was the next victim. Almost a soon as he laid down in bed that night he jumped up and ran to the bathroom. As he generally wants to be left alone when he is sick I managed to get a little sleep, but I don't think he did.

Friday morning about 3 a.m. I found out I was the next victim when sharp stomach cramps woke me up. This stomach bug was getting ridiculous. Both of us sick is not a good thing. We made it through the day even got the kids to school and picked up at 1 from early dismissal but as soon as Cody made it home from school we both went to bed and Cody got stuck babysitting the kiddos.

Today we are both feeling better. My stomach is still a little tender, and I don't think I want to eat anything spicy or greasy but I am feeling much better than yesterday! Cody on the other hand will probably feel better tomorrow. If there is anything redeeming about this bug it is that it hits hard but goes away quickly. Now unless the cats start barfing we should be just about all done with it, I hope!