ZuDuSu

poof

2012-02-12T01:44:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year when we're keeping plenty busy, but nothing is particularly exciting or interesting. I feel like every post I've made in months has included my feet or birding. This post will be no different.

The knitting class is wearing on my nerves. Knitting is much more difficult to learn than I could have imagined. Kaylin is having an extremely hard time with it so I am having an extremely hard time. She is at a high level of frustration. I'm trying to keep it together and not wring her little neck. I think there is some possibility that once you get it, knitting may be a mindless activity you can do while watching tv, but when you're teaching yourself, it requires a huge amount of effort and concentration. Kaylin just wants to pop out a scarf. Last week. Yesterday, after wasting the class whining and dripping tears and using the word "impossible", she finally sat down and actually TRIED for the first time. She knit several rows on her own before making an unfixable (by me anyway) mistake. I explained (once again) how many attempts I made doing exactly the same thing and starting over and over and over until I got it right.

Knitting isn't something I'm forcing Kaylin to do! She WANTS to learn! She just doesn't want it to be complicated and require as much effort as it does. I'm not making her practice XX minutes a night or expecting her to complete a project. My project for the class is going to be a small dish cloth and then I very well may never knit again. Kaylin may or may not end up loving it. I don't care much either way.

Logan is signed up for flag football and he can't wait. It starts next weekend with a clinic with a semi-pro Peoria team I've never heard of. I'm sure he'll love every moment. He's also loving every moment of his winter baseball clinic and is learning to pitch. Logan has gotten really into watching Bulls basketball and loves playing at home by himself or with Gene, but has no desire to play basketball on a team. He wants to concentrate on baseball and football.

On to my foot that prevented me from birding this weekend. Hey, at least there will be nothing about birds. :) Anyway, I was having terrible muscle tightness in my left calf that was either caused by my bad foot or else causing my foot to hurt MUCH worse than usual. I was stretching and massaging and doing everything else I could think of, but nothing helped. I finally made a doctor appointment, hoping for some temporary muscle relaxers or stronger pain meds. The doc poked around on my foot and when I practically jumped out of the chair, he said "Shot." My appointment was in the morning of a work day, with work the following day so I questioned if that would "work"? He thought I'd be fine. He was wrong.

I'm not afraid of needles. I've had several cortisone shots in my feet. They've never been painful at the time of injection. This time was special. The doc put on the numbing stuff and I felt the usual minor prick. No big deal. Then, when he tried to inject the cortisone, there was terrible counter-pressure (?) and he had to really fight to get it in. It was incredibly painful! I went back to work and the dull pressure just got worse and worse. It was like having a migraine in my foot. I talked to my boss and told her I thought I could finish out the day, but since the pain is usually worse the day after the shot, I wouldn't be coming in Thursday. Fortunately, we were well staffed and that worked out fine. By 4pm Wednesday, I couldn't take the pain anymore and finished locking up and left. I spent my "3 day weekend" doing next to nothing, because my foot hurt too much. I didn't even get dressed on Thursday. It's Sunday morning and my foot still hurts more than it did before the shot. I'm going to work, but have no idea if I'll be fine or in agony. At least my calf tightness is 95% gone.

I've really had it with the foot pain. For the first time, I'm considering surgery. I really can't take much more. It's been three years of constant pain. I've been forced to stop exercising, have gained close to 40 pounds and have had every aspect of my life ruled by pain. It's depressing. I have one last thing I'm going to try and if/when that doesn't work, I'm having the surgery.

More knitting and birds

2012-02-05T00:33:00.000-08:00

Well, after hours and hours of studying the Mickey Mouse book and watching a really good video, I did indeed teach myself to knit. Sort of. I can't BELIEVE how much time I put into knitting last week! Then, once I learned the basic stitch, I had to practice and practice and practice. My homework was to knit a 7x9 inch "square". I literally spent hours knitting a 7X4 1/2 inch pathetic rectangle. I also spent too much time trying to teach Kaylin what I learned, but she was not into it and got easily frustrated. She was mad that I was better at knitting. Seriously, child?! Do you even know how much time I've put into this? Eh, I know my kid and imagine that one night she'll lock herself in her room, figure out knitting and emerge the next morning with a completed sweater with an intricate pattern. I'm not a bit worried about her current lack of knitting skills.

Yesterday in class we learned the other knitting stitch- purl. Hooray! Now I have twice as much to be confused about. I keep going back and forth... How much time do I want to put into something I have no plans to pursue? I suppose if I ever need foot surgery or am bedridden, maybe I can knit lumpy, rectangular washcloths. Sweet!

Friday, Duncan the dog and I had an amazing birding trip to Banner Marsh and Emiquon. Banner was deserted except for one dude out on the icy lake in his fishing boat. I "think" he was trying to break the ice because he kept going back and forth over and over. It was loud and annoying and a major waste of gas. Whatever. He finally gave up and left. Duncan and I basked in the beautiful day and took a long walk along the top of the levee. Birds were everywhere! Flocks and flocks of greater white-fronted geese and Canada geese flew overhead. Eagles were circling above and the brush was filled with American tree sparrows and song sparrows. Duncan has an undying hatred for killdeer (probably because they're obnoxiously loud and they run along the ground) and was busy hunting them while a trio of eagles circled overhead hunting Duncan. At 15 pounds, he's probably a bit larger than their usual prey, but there were three. At the end of our walk, seconds before we got into the car, Duncan rolled in dead fish. Super. Will I never learn?

Smelly Dog and I moved on to Duck Creek where we saw small flocks of both tundra and trumpeter swans. One was banded, but too far away to read the number with my scope. Meanwhile, huge flocks of snow geese flew overhead to our next destination- Emiquon.

I can't even begin to describe the number of snow geese at Emiquon. Tens of thousands, I'm sure. They were absolutely covering the south end of Thompson Lake and huge flocks were coming and going at all times. I have never seen so many migrating birds! At times the honking from above was deafening. At other times it looked like a giant black cloud was moving in quickly, covering the entire horizon. I would love to have somebody qualified estimate the number of birds I saw. It seemed like millions.

I had completely intended to do my usual birding loop and hit Lake Chautauqua, Sand Ridge Forest and Spring Lake, but I ran out of time! Duncan and I left home before 10am and didn't get home until 5pm. All told, I saw 35 different bird species and added 9 to my year list which currently stands at 54. It was a gorgeous day and well-spent outside hiking and birding. I spent too much of my weekend knitting and birding so now I need to spend the rest of my early morning reconciling my checkbook and paying bills. Despite the knitting, it was a GREAT weekend!

Susy Homemaker

2012-01-30T02:23:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that I went into my first knitting class with a bad attitude. Not a bad attitude like I can't do this or don't want to do this, more along the lines of I don't give a hoot. I had no intention of learning to knit- I was transportation for my child, nothing more. I would pay attention the first class and help my daughter get started if necessary, and then I would be done knitting forever. It didn't work that way.

Instructor woman droned on and on about her amazing life of knitting. She's trained with such and such person who could very well be the Michael Jordan of knitting, but I've never heard of her and don't really care. She then passed around about 20 examples of different knitting how-to books we can buy at Michaels or Hobby Lobby or JoAnn Fabrics. That was slightly entertaining because one was a leftover from the 70s and had some hilarious pictures including one of a boy slightly younger than Logan wearing an entirely knit outfit. I can't imagine a boy older than two consenting to wear knit pants! Anyway, blah,blah,blah,blah,blah.

It was finally time to start learning to knit! First, we learned to make a slip-knot. I've known how to make a slip-knot for more than 30 years, but trying to do it her way was so confusing I had to try several times. Then we learned to cast on, which is putting several knots? stitches? on one knitting needle. I happened to be sitting closest to the instructor, so she helped me first. "No, you bring the yarn around the back. No. Around the BACK!" What? Her words made no sense whatsoever and she quickly became impatient and moved on. I noticed that the woman across from me had it and I asked if I could watch her from behind so I could copy her. She taught me pretty well, but I'm a hands-on learner and have to do things like this until perfection to get them down. By the time I was practicing casting on, the instructor was ready to move on. Meanwhile, Kaylin was frustrated half to death and starting to whine. I tried to convince her I'd figure this out and then help her. I HAD to learn it myself first before I could teach her. We managed to keep calm and I tuned out the second part of the lesson so I could figure out the first. By the time I was ready to go back to the woman across from me for help with the second step, the class was over. Crap!

At this point I was angry. I mean, here's this instructor who trained with the great Carol Johnson (name made up) and she completely stinks at teaching others to knit! I learned WAY more from the woman sitting across from me! Thank goodness I didn't just send Kaylin by herself to this class! My mama bear instincts kicked in and I became furious that this instructor wasn't going to teach my baby to knit. "I" was going to have to do it myself! But how? I didn't care how, I was going to do it! And that is how I went from completely uninterested chaperon to determined to learn how to knit. Yes, I'm laughing at myself, but I'm also determined!

My boss is also taking the class and I was extremely relieved to find that she left just as confused and annoyed as Kaylin and me. She's a natural at this stuff, so I figured if anyone would get it, it would be her. Nope.

I went home and tried watching some youtube videos, but everyone cast on a different way and I got even more confused. (I'm sure there are some great ones, I just haven't been patient enough to skim through them yet.) I then decided that a book aimed at children might be the key. I dug through the recycling and found last Sunday's 40% off Hobby Lobby coupon because there was NO WAY I was going to pay full price to learn how to knit! Hobby Lobby had a Mickey Mouse "I Taught Myself to Knit" kit that came with a book, knitting needles and a bunch of fun Mickey end caps and stuff. It was labeled for ages 8 and up. Perfect.

I had a busy Saturday night and didn't look through the book, but took it to work Sunday and read it at lunch. I think I can learn to knit with this book! It has really simple instructions and color coding. It tells you exactly how to hold your needles and has diagrams to back up the words. I was so excited I took the book over to show my boss. It was probably pretty pathetic, two grown women so excited about learning how to knit from Mickey. She took the book home last night which gave me the perfect excuse to not learn to knit quite yet. I imagine tonight will be all about learning to knit and tomorrow I'll teach Kaylin. We're both supposed to knit a 9x9 inch square by next Saturday. I hope that's easier than I think it will be! :)

Weekend Update

2012-01-28T02:59:00.000-08:00

I'm starting a knitting class today. I have no desire to learn to knit, but Kaylin wants to and doesn't want to go to class by herself. Who knows, maybe I'll actually like it and can make Duncan a new wardrobe of doggy sweaters for next winter. Or maybe I'll hate it and ask the teacher if she'll be offended if I read a book during class time :)

Logan started a winter baseball clinic this week. There were only a few other boys, but he loves it because it's baseball. I tried to talk him into trying soccer, lacrosse or wrestling, but he doesn't want to waste any of his precious free time on sports that aren't baseball or football. That's probably a really good thing at age 9. I've heard that lacrosse equipment is incredibly expensive so I'm glad he isn't taking it up at a time he'd need new stuff every year, but I think he'd love the game. Maybe when he's older.

Otherwise, things have been busy, but not terribly interesting. The kids are going into the dreaded 3rd quarter of school that's all about preparing to take the state tests required by No Child Left Behind. Thanks for nothin', George W. Bush! Last year all of Kaylin's "extras" such as art were dropped for the quarter to make more time for test preparation. Her grades dropped noticeably because she was so bored to be learning nothing new, just constantly drilled on test-taking. What a bunch of crap! This program is a MAJOR FAIL.

I've been birding every chance I get. I've actually been listing species to keep a count of the different birds I see. I'm going to attempt to keep a monthly and a yearly list so I can look back on what birds are around at different times, but I'm a terrible lister and it's a major chore for me to remember to record this stuff! I'm currently at 43 species. I was hoping for 50 in January, but I've got all the common birds and I'm just clueless where to find those last 7. I'm not good enough at picking out an odd type of sparrow or gull from a flock. I've been reading the Illinois birding boards and people keep posting finding 67 (or some crazy high number) different species in one day. They're the ones who spend hours with their spotting scopes picking the odd black-backed gull out of the group of thousands of ring-billed gulls. I'm not that crazy. Yet.

Sweater Dog

2012-01-21T02:21:00.000-08:00

My dog loves wearing sweaters. There, I said it- the terrible truth I'm struggling to accept- I dress my dog in clothes. It can't be helped, really. Duncan is a small dog with a very short coat and he has a hard time keeping warm when it's really cold.

I've been a dog lover pretty much since the day I was born. I've loved all sizes of dogs over the years, but I've mostly gravitated toward big, friendly dogs. Big Lab and shepherd mixes who love the water and don't feel the cold. My old dog Brady loved the snow and would charge into huge drifts and roll and play. Brady would swim in water so cold I didn't even want to touch it and then get out and shake off and tear around to keep warm. If there was a patch of open water in January or February, Brady was in it. Duncan isn't a water dog at the height of summer so I'm pretty sure if he somehow fell into open water in January he'd be dead before he surfaced.

We got Duncan at the end of February last year. By the time he was settled into our house, it was early spring, so this is our first real winter together. I'm not used to wussy dogs who shiver and shake from the cold. I knew I had to get... A sweater. I found a cute reindeer sweater on Christmas clearance for less than two bucks at Walmart. I figured that it was the perfect trial sweater. If he hated it and immediately destroyed it, oh well. I assumed it would take two of us to get the sweater on Duncan. I thought he'd fight it and then work until he had it off. I couldn't have been more wrong. He did fight it a little the first time, but only because it was something new. Five minutes in the sweater and he never wanted it off. Ever.

If I take the sweater off, he brings it to me. When I put it back on he stands perfectly still as it goes over his head and then helps me get his legs in the holes. This is the same dog that gets so excited and bounces around so much it is extremely difficult for the kids to get him into his harness for a walk. Sometimes it's even hard to clip on a leash! But the sweater? I could probably dress him if I had both arms in plaster casts. That's how good he is!

I hadn't taken Duncan with me in the car for a while, so yesterday I took him with me on some quick errands. He was super-excited to get out, but it was really cold outside. He likes to prop his entire body on the passenger side dash board, but my car hadn't warmed up yet so he was literally shaking from the cold. Even with the sweater :) It was pretty funny. I'm sure I'll somehow get used to dog sweaters and at some point will no longer find them offensive, but right now? It's hard.

Back to Work

2012-01-07T16:36:00.000-08:00

I might say this every time, but I think this was my best vacation ever. It was so relaxing and fun! I had tons of time with my family both at home and away. I went birding with Meghan, had lunch with Colleen and went to a movie with Lynne. I read a couple of great books and went out looking for otters and owls by myself. I accomplished everything on my chore list, including getting a hair cut, cleaning out my car and getting an oil change.

After very limited success, I re-evaluated my vegan diet and quit. I don't think it helped with my foot pain at all and I could never have kept it up because I didn't like it. I did a bunch of research and learned that I am a protein metabolism type. That pretty much means my body requires more protein and fat, as well as more meals and snacks, than a carb metabolism type. Basically, the vegan diet I was attempting was the opposite of what my body needs. I've got a new eating plan. I really need to lose weight, but my goal of my eating plan is more to eat better and eliminate fast food and most processed food. I've now gone more than 2 months without diet soda, so that's going well. I also rejoined the gym and plan to start using stationary bikes and ellipticals soon.
Unfortunately, I was just diagnosed with bronchitis and am on an inhaler 8 times a day. It's probably not the best time to start a new exercise program. Soon.

The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile was at Walmart today! We went and took photos and looked at the inside. Unfortunately, they were out of wiener whistles. Oh well, we have many. We each got a Wienermobile sticker, though. It's always fun to see the giant hot dog car.

I can't believe it's not just a new year, but the year I turn 40. I have some big plans and big goals for this year. It's time to make some grown-up decisions. I'm looking forward to seeing what this year brings. And dreading it a little, too...

Ahhhhh, relaxation.

2012-01-04T16:52:00.001-08:00

I went birding with Meghan on Monday morning. It was really cold and windy so we did most of our birding from the car. Most of the small ponds were already frozen over so we were a bit worried we'd have no waterfowl, but the bigger lakes at Banner Marsh and Emiquon were still open and we saw many types of ducks, geese and swans, as well as a large flock of white pelicans. We also saw plenty of bald eagles, lots of woodpeckers and a harrier. It turned out to be a pretty good birding day!

I dropped off Meghan and picked up Duncan from boarding at the vet's office. I was expecting him to be bouncing off the walls, excited to see me and go home. He wagged his tail a little, hopped in the car and slept through the 15 minute drive home. At home he curled up in my chair and slept until Gene and the kids came home and woke him up. He was happy to see them, but almost immediately found a quiet place to sleep and then slept the rest of the afternoon and evening with 5 kids tearing around the house. It was soooo weird. Duncan usually loves the car and plays with the kids nonstop! I'm guessing that he spent the entire 5 days of boarding on high alert, barking his fool head off. He was also really bony and really hungry. He normally just picks at his dog food and spends the entire day eating one bowl. He ate three bowls on Monday. I couldn't turn him down because he NEVER begs for dog food.

The kids have been having a blast with their time off. They've played and played with the neighbor kids, played video games, played with the pets and even played outside. Tomorrow we're planning a work day to clean rooms and go through some old clothes and toys. Bummer. What I really want to do is go to Chicago and look for snowy owls. I guess we can't have all play and no work. I wish all of my vacations could be this long and have this perfect mix of away time and home time!

Home Again

2012-01-01T10:17:00.000-08:00

We're ba-ack! Following a final round of hotel waffles, my family surprised me by unanimously voting to go to the Tennessee Aquarium rather than Rock City. Our plan was to check out one last big tourist attraction before stopping somewhere in the stretch of mountains and heading home to the cats. The aquarium is very nice and has an amazing section of seahorses, but it doesn't compare to Georgia Aquarium's whale sharks, manta rays, belugas, dolphins and major amazement around every turn. Still, we had a good time. We walked around the river front a while before eating lunch at Cheeburger Cheeburger and heading out of town.

I hadn't really considered it beforehand, but traveling on a Saturday that was also New Year's Eve was excellent. There was no traffic anywhere along our route. We drove ~9 hours without seeing one cop or one accident. We drove through Nashville around 2:30 or 3pm and cruised through without slowing down. We stopped a few times for restrooms, food and gas, but mostly we just drove. And drove and drove... It was an odd drive because there were few cars and even fewer trucks. We passed rest areas and truck stops that normally would have been full to capacity and they had maybe 5 or 6 trucks. The kids were great about the boring drive and the first (and probably last) complaint I heard was when we were near Champaign.

We arrived home around 9:30pm. Logan was determined to stay up until midnight to celebrate the new year. Kaylin's a night owl and it was no challenge for her. By the time we got things unloaded and somewhat put away it was almost 11. I checked my email and immediately fell asleep in my chair. The kids woke me just before midnight. They were watching the Dick Clark ball drop thing. Wow. Dick seems to have improved since last year, but man, it's hard to watch him! We did the Happy New Year celebration and I headed to bed. The country club had their usual fireworks and Gene and the kids went outside to watch. I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

It was nice to get out of town for a few days. We had a great time and now I'm looking forward to several days off at home. I hope to go birding a couple of times and just spend some quality time with my husband and kids. Of course, all three neighbor kids were over by 9am and haven't left and probably never will. We're all missing Duncan, but can't pick him up until tomorrow. It is sort of nice to be able to love on the cats as much as we want without Jealous Dog chasing them away.

Happy 2012!

Cranes!

2011-12-31T02:40:00.001-08:00

I had been kind of on the fence about Zoo Atlanta because I've heard some bad things about it, but I thought it was great! I mean, sure, there were some old and run-down areas, but it appears they have done major renovations of most of the aging zoo. I'm guessing the haters are jealous of all their giant pandas. It was a perfect zoo day- just warm enough that all the animals were outside, but cool enough that they were all active. The pandas had just been fed and all four that were on display were eating and moving around. The year-old baby was bouncing all over the place and cute as can be! We watched the pandas for a long time. Other highlights were two young kangaroos boxing and some very interactive ground hornbills that kept trying to present us with chunks of mulch. They were adorable! We spent a few enjoyable hours and saw everything. It was a nice, compact zoo with lots of impressive animals.

We headed out of town and followed my MapQuest directions to Hiwassee Wildlife Preserve. Except my directions took us to the WRONG Hiwassee area and some extremely nice girl at the only tiny store in the tiny town of (I think) Reliance, helped me google the proper directions and helped us out of a beautiful mountain area by the beautiful Hiwassee River. While I was in her store, some men drove up with a gigantic feral hog they had just shot strapped to the back of their truck. They told me about what a problem hogs are in that area and it was sort of surreal. Anyway, if I hadn't been so eager to see my cranes I could have stayed in this area and hiked and birded the river. It was gorgeous! Unfortunately, we had about an hour trip ahead of us and the sun was going down way too quickly. This time the directions were perfect and we made it to the cranes with plenty of light.

As usual, this prime wintering area for sandhill cranes was nothing like I imagined. It just looked like a not huge, not small lake area on a small river, surrounded by fields and trees. There was nothing too amazing about it, but there were thousands upon thousands of sandhill cranes. They were flying and calling to each other. They were just standing there. They were in the water and on the land. There were so many that even Gene and the kids were impressed! There were probably 20 other birders there and I think I was the only one who just wanted to see the huge numbers of sandhills. They were all hoping to spot the Asian crane or whoopers. I would have liked to have seen both, but was very satisfied with just the sandhills. We stayed about an hour and then drove on to Chattanooga for the night.

The kids swam for an hour and a half while Gene and I took turns watching them. We finally found a hotel with both a pool AND queen sized comfortable beds! The places we've stayed the past two nights have had full sized lumpy beds, so the good old Hampton has been luxurious! We're planning to do one of the touristy things in Chattanooga today and then possibly drive all the way home. We'll see how we feel. I think a lot of touristy things are closed tomorrow so we might not have a lot of options for things to do. I'd love to go to one of the state parks in southern Illinois and hike and bird, but I'm guessing I'm the only one who wants to do that :) We'll see... Oh, and the kids want to stay up until midnight tonight and celebrate the new year. I'm pretty sure the only way I will accomplish that is if we're driving, lol.

Aquarium Fun

2011-12-30T02:41:00.000-08:00

We dropped Duncan at the vet's office to board as soon as they opened at 8am Wednesday morning and then hit the road. My, oh my, Illinois is a long state! We stopped for photos with the giant Superman statue in Metropolis and I was a bit disappointed that he was wearing a Santa hat since it's AFTER Christmas, but I guess we'll remember the time of year. We hit a bag of garbage on the highway and had to stop to remove it from under the car. The kids found that minor inconvenience hilarious and really, it was. We didn't stop again until we were deep in the mountains and we stopped to eat and pick up a couple of things at Walmart. We then drove on to a suburb of Atlanta and stopped for the night. It was a long day of driving, but the kids did great and everyone was happy to be getting away.

Thursday morning we got to the Georgia Aquarium right after opening. We walked right up to the ticket window and then headed directly to the whale shark viewing tube. We had the whole area practically to ourselves! The kids were blown away by the huge whale sharks and manta rays! Usually, one of our big favorites at aquariums is sawfish. The sawfish were all over the tunnel area, but we hardly noticed them with four huge whale sharks swimming just feet from us. We then beat the crowds to the beluga viewing area and got lots of fun interaction. I love the rare opportunity to see an octopus, but usually they are crammed into a corner or rock and you can just see a small part of them OR the tank is so dimly lit you only see a silhouette. The octopus was moving all over its well-lit tank. The sea otters had just been fed and were very active. The rays in the touch tank WANTED my kids to pet them. The dolphin show was a little silly with singing and pointless drama, but the parts that contained actual dolphins were incredible! The place was packed by the time we left, but it was a fantastic experience. I bet I've taken the kids to at least 40-50 different zoos and aquariums and this was easily their favorite.

We then headed across the park to the World of Coca-Cola. The kids were really looking forward to this place. It was early afternoon and BUSY. They have three areas to slow crowd flow before allowing you into the main museum area, but we still waited at least 30 minutes in line for the uber-cheesy vault tour to see the safe where the secret formula is stored. It was so dumb :) We then went through a couple of memorabilia areas, an area that showed old television commercials and a bumpy "4D" movie that was pretty fun. The bottling plant tour (they give you a souvenir bottle of Coke when you leave) was really cool. Finally, we got to the tasting area, with 60 different flavors of Coke products from around the world. It was fantastic! The special flavor was gingerbread Coke which was delicious. We then tried sips of dozens of crazy flavors from around the world. Everything from watermelon to apple to vegetable soda. The Asian flavors were our favorites and the European our least favorite. We all had to retry the infamous and disgusting Beverly of Epcot fame. It's Italian and one of the worst drinks I've tasted. The tasting area was by far the best part of the tour and while very fun, I don't know if I'd go back to the World of Coke. I'm glad we did it once.

Logan has decided that he hates elevators and urban areas, so we headed to the suburbs to find a hotel for the night. We stopped at a huge shopping mall with a Lego store. The mall reminded me of a combo between Woodfield and Gurnee Mills malls near Chicago. However, instead of being at all uppity and high class, it was filled with weird mall things from the past. They had one of those virtual reality box rides that were popular in the 80s and a big section of shiatsu massage chairs from the 90s. It was like having the store selection of a nice urban mall in the building of the Pekin mall. I normally only tolerate malls if they have Lego stores, but I enjoyed this one very much. We found a Drury Inn with an indoor/outdoor pool and the kids are in heaven. I would totally book it for another night, but I think we're going to head back to Tennessee after we go to Zoo Atlanta today.

The place I'm planning to go to see the huge sandhill crane migration is all over the internet because an Asian hooded crane that is NEVER seen in the United States has been spotted. It is such big news that it was actually #3 in the top ten searches on Yahoo yesterday. Birders from 32 states have gone to this place in hopes of seeing the rare crane. I'm a bit bummed because I was assuming I'd have the place to myself. Oh well... We can't have everything :) Otherwise, the trip is going great and we're having a blast!

Vacation time!

2011-12-28T02:12:00.000-08:00

I'm on vacation, I'm on vacation! (Sing along and do a little dance.) I'm up bright and early doing laundry and finishing packing. We're heading to Atlanta in a few hours. We plan to go to the aquarium and the Coke museum for sure, possibly the zoo and a Lego store, and on the way home stop at a wildlife refuge in Tennessee that is the winter home to tens of thousands of sandhill cranes. I'm excited about getting away for a few days and then still having several days off at home. Yay!

The long Christmas weekend turned out pretty great. The kids spent lots of time playing with their cousins and had a blast. Gene's family gathering was a little disappointing because that's usually the only time they get to play with their cousins on that side of the family and they were with their dad. Logan was happy to watch the Bears/Packers game with the men and Kaylin, Jeff and I put together a puzzle Kaylin received as a gift, so we had fun anyway. Monday night we took Kaylin's cotton candy maker to Grandma K's. It was a big hit and hilarious to be in the middle of 10 kids scrambling to make their preferred flavor. I think I made cotton candy non-stop for close to an hour and watched the little wisps of candy float through the air onto Grandma's hanging lamp. I probably spent 10 minutes cleaning that lamp when the candy making was finally over :) I'm still shocked at what a good toy the cotton candy maker turned out to be! Usually those types of toys are complete junk, but this one actually works.

Well, I better get packin'. Hooray!

Merry Christmas

2011-12-23T14:52:00.000-08:00

It's 5pm on Friday and I'm still in my pajamas. It's my normal day off, but Gene and the kids are all off too. We opened Christmas presents this morning and have spent the day playing new video games, playing with toys and just lounging around. Kaylin got a cotton candy machine that makes cotton candy from hard candy. We've tried different varieties of Lifesavers as well as peppermints and spearmint. Surprisingly, the mint varieties are subtle and delicious and the Lifesavers are a little too sweet. It's a really fun toy and I can't wait to try butterscotch and rootbeer sometime.

Despite my not so subtle hints that "I" am Santa, my kids refuse to stop believing in the fat elf. I really don't think they are messing with me, but who knows? This year we found a good deal on an XBox with Kinect video game bundle and that's what Santa brought for the whole family. He didn't bring anything for the kids individually, but they were very impressed with their big haul.

I used to stress over the kids getting up and finding me in the living room filling stockings, but now I put wrapping paper over their doors and the hallway entrance and they can't see me. Then they get to bust through the paper to get to their presents. Fun times. Gene and I don't usually do big gifts for each other, but we try to get something silly the other person will actually like. This year I got Gene a toaster that burns the White Sox logo onto the toast and he got me an Angry Birds pig stocking cap with a tassel on top. I think we were both pretty happy. I know I was!

I really need to go grocery shopping, but I keep reading facebook posts from people who spent an hour in line for a gallon of milk. No thanks! I think I'll stay in my pajamas and try to go early tomorrow morning. I'm off tomorrow (as usual) and then have to work Sunday and Monday before getting the next 12 days off. I can't wait to be on vacation!

Christmas Bird Count

2011-12-19T02:21:00.000-08:00

I should probably fact check before I start writing, but I don't feel like it. Anyway, on Saturday I participated in the 120th(ish) Audubon Christmas Bird Count. These counts are done all over the country (I know of 4 separate counts in my general area- areas don't overlap) and then the numbers are tallied to get a good idea of the overall bird populations. Basically, you count and classify every bird you see from your recorded starting time to recorded ending time. Peoria is divided into 7 areas that cover a 15 mile radius from the center of town. Only two of the areas were actually in the city and the rest were in surrounding towns and rural areas. The area I counted was bordered by War Memorial Drive on the south, the river on the east, Route 6 on the west and near Dunlap on the north. We spent a lot of time hiking Forest Park Nature Center and also made several stops at golf courses, Detweiller Park, Rock Island Trail, schools, driving through neighborhoods, etc. We also made several stops along the river, but our stretch of river is wide and open and not much of a bird sanctuary. We saw several bald eagles, but only three ducks, a few gulls and a lone Canada goose.

We started out at the Forest Park Nature Center parking lot at 5:45am. The idea was to play owl calls and try to attract owls to the lighted parking lot where we could actually see them. Unfortunately, there was so much traffic noise it didn't work. We moved on to Detweiller Park and tried the same thing. We attracted one barred owl that we actually saw. We tried for great horned owls at the Mt. Hawley golf course, but they had delivery trucks and a very loud garbage truck and we got no results. Oh well, even one owl is pretty cool!

By this time it was starting to get light so we stopped at Panera for breakfast while we waited for the birds to come out. We then started counting every bird we saw. I was terrified I wouldn't be able to identify half the birds, but I was wrong. We didn't see one bird I couldn't ID. It seems our winter selection of birds in town is not that diverse. Our highest numbers went to chickadees, juncos, ring-billed gulls, starlings and rock pigeons. We saw dozens of downy and red-bellied woodpeckers, along with dozens of nuthatches and house sparrows. There were some cardinals and goldfinches scattered in, but even hiking miles through FPNC, we didn't see a huge diversity of sparrows. Probably our highlight was a huge group of 61 turkeys. That was pretty fun to watch!

One thing I learned and was very surprised about is how rare red-headed woodpeckers and flickers have become. As a child watching feeder birds, those were the only woodpeckers I knew. Red-headed woodpeckers made a nest in the wooden paneling right at the head of my bed and then had a bunch of noisy babies. I'm pretty sure they used that nest at least two years. I saw red-headed woodpeckers all the time. Flickers, too! During the count we were specifically watching for these guys (along with pileated) and didn't see ANY.

All told, we were out birding for 9 1/2 hours. It was a long day, but very fun and I learned a lot. I will try to do the Peoria count every year. This year was excellent because it was relatively warm- never below the upper 20s and up to nearly 40F by the time we quit. I was still so cold when I got home I didn't think I'd ever get warm. Last year was 10F and I can't imagine doing what we did in those conditions!

Whew!

2011-12-16T03:58:00.000-08:00

This week was nuts! I'm a big fan of coming home after work, showering and plunking myself into my chair to hang out with my kids, pets, husband and computer. This week I had meetings or activities every night. The two highlights were Kaylin's winter band concert and my work Christmas party.

Kaylin's concert was Tuesday night. It was rainy and I was cold and wet from work and forced to rush home and shower, change and eat as fast as possible. Logan was a complete disaster, whining and making excuses about why he shouldn't have to go. I believe in family support. I mean, how many baseball games did Kaylin attend? It's not like she loved them! I told him he could take his DS game and that Grandpa and Grandma would be there. He had worked himself into a frenzy when he offered me $20 to stay home. This is the kid who NEVER spends any of his money. Ever. At this point he had made way too much of a jerk of himself to take it back. HA! I was going to teach him a hard lesson. I accepted the money and he went to his room, stunned.

We went to the concert, laughing all the way about Logan's bad move and how we bet he never would have thought I'd take his beloved money. Then the concert started... The three levels of band played. The band director went on and on about some new piano thing the PTO bought and then had two kids play very long demos to show how wonderful it is. Then the choir performed with much more talk about the new piano that had some other name and is extremely wonderful and loved and the best PTO purchase in the history of the world. Wow, this concert is getting long! Time for the four levels of orchestra. I don't think the director talked about the new piano, but his accent was so thick I'm not positive what he talked about. He talked and talked and talked and then individually tuned each student's instrument. Then he talked between each of the songs and retuned instruments and took as long as band, new piano demos and choir combined! After a long day of physical labor and being on my feet, two hours glued to a bleacher bench was torture. I felt like every muscle in my body was tensing and I had to keep standing and stretching. The concert finally ended and I'm a little surprised the orchestra director wasn't attacked! I have never heard such rumblings of discontent from an audience of proud family members. The kids all were wonderful and did a great job, but it was the worst concert ever!

We arrived home to a happy boy cuddled in Gene's chair with the dog, watching his favorite show, Storm Trackers. I admitted to myself that NO lesson had been learned and that the $20 was probably the best money Logan had ever spent. I donated the money to a good cause and life goes on. Now I just wonder if I can pay Kaylin $20 to get out of her spring concert?

Thursday night was my work Christmas party. It was another night of rushing home to shower and change to try to get there by 6pm. The party location was right up the street from the zoo so I had hoped to just go straight from work, but I helped with a vet procedure that left me covered in feces so showering/clothing change were not optional. It absolutely amazes me how much our staff has grown in the past few years since the Africa area opened. Including significant others, I bet there were around 40 people there. Colleen, Roz and I sang my stupid Christmas song and then we had our annual white elephant gift exchange. We play that you can choose a new gift or steal an opened one, with two steals before the item is out of play. I drew number 3 which is sort of a bummer because even if there's anything worth stealing, it will likely get stolen again. I unwrapped a John Wayne DVD and figured Gene would probably like it. Later, someone unwrapped a boxed set of Pez presidents. I was shocked because I never even knew it existed. Man, I wanted those Pez. They were immediately stolen once. A few more people took their turn and then my boss stole the John Wayne DVD, leaving me open to make the final steal on the Pez dispensers. Thanks, Boss! It's a set of the first five presidents and is really cool. I usually end up with some hideous doll or figurine (or a whole bunch of them) that make their way to Goodwill. The party itself was fun enough but walking out with a set of Pez presidents made it even better!

Saturday I'm participating in the Christmas Bird Count. I'm meeting my team at Forest Park Nature Center at 5:45am and have no idea what to expect. We cover a predetermined area, but I don't know exactly what the area is or if we count from dawn til dusk or for a few hours or what. I'm really excited because we're going early to look for owls. My favorite!

Speaking of owls, I was driving to the zoo dump the other afternoon around 4pm. It was getting dark and I was looking for birds. I had just thought "It's a good time to look for owls" when a barred owl swooped in front of me and landed on a tree. I watched it for a minute before it moved on. Very cool! I've also had a bald eagle perched in a tree right outside my building several times this week. I've seen plenty of eagles flying over the zoo and park, but have never seen one perched in a tree right off the main path.

A Long December

2011-12-06T23:42:00.000-08:00

Well, I've been out of the cast for a week and my foot is doing much better. I think the cast was messing up my ankle/leg/knees/back so much that I couldn't tell where the pain was coming from. I told the doc I couldn't take it anymore and he picked up the battered boot that's been repadded and had a piece of craft foam as a toe guard and said "Maybe you need a new cast." I can only imagine the look on my face because he quickly decided to wrap my foot with a bandage and try that instead. He also pressed on my injured tendon and said it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was. I worked 4 days in the bandage with my regular work boots and most of my other pain went away. My ankle is still a bit weak, but when I returned to the doctor on Monday he was shocked at how much better I was. He admitted that he in no way thought the bandage would work. I asked about unloading a hay truck and he looked at me like I was completely insane and said "No." I don't know what will happen with my foot- if it will get better or if my tendon will one day just snap when I walk up one step. The doc couldn't give me any feedback either way. He just said something stupid like "I don't know how you can love that job." Well buddy, I don't know how you can work with smelly, nasty feet all day!

The kitten spent most of the first week the Christmas tree was up climbing the tree and removing the ornaments. She still plays in it sometimes, but most of the novelty is gone. All of the "good" ornaments are clustered in a tiny area at the very top and most of the rest of the ornaments are on the ground. It's not worth replacing them over and over, but I can't bring myself to put them away. Duncan has chewed up a couple of wooden ornaments but has otherwise left the tree alone. Tiger would love to climb the tree but he's too fat.

Today is my one month mark since quitting diet soda. I do miss it a lot, but I'm not really craving it. I mean, I WANT it, but I don't think about it or have to occupy myself with other things to try to put it out of my mind. I miss the taste and the fizz. Plain tea and water just don't match soda. My diet is going okay, but I still can't exercise outside of work so the weight is coming off slowly. I haven't eaten meat in a month, but I can't keep vegan. It's nearly impossible to not have SOME dairy or eggs in things. I'm trying to avoid cheese unless I eat out, but avoiding animal products altogether is too hard when I lack the political drive and self-righteousness one needs for this kind of diet.

The kids are crazy with excitement for Christmas and a break from school. I have 12 days off starting the Tuesday after Christmas and we're planning to go somewhere fun. Atlanta is a major finalist because both Kaylin and Logan want to go to the aquarium to see whale sharks. They also want to go to the Coke museum to try all the different flavors. If we go there I think I'll have to end my soda ban for a day. They also want to go to St. Louis to City Museum. I guess we'll see what the weather's like and how we feel. We have a TON of stuff to do around the house so maybe a shorter trip would be better.

Long Weekend

2011-11-27T01:22:00.000-08:00

I just had a "sort of" 4 day weekend and can't believe it's already time to go back to work! It was only "sort of" because I did have to work 4 hours on Thanksgiving day, but it was from 7am-11am so I had most of the day off. Gene has a 5 day weekend, but he's taking an online class and had a huge amount of work so most of his time has been catching up with school.

Wednesday we spent the day in Decatur. Since Gene was almost transferred there last summer and there's still a possibility he'll be transferred in a year or two, I wanted to see the town. I've only been there twice that I remember and both times were to go to the zoo. I didn't pay a lick of attention to the town or the surrounding area. Wednesday's visit was all about seeing if we could stand to live in a town best know for their stinky ADM plant. My first test was to check out Rock Springs Nature Center. If this place failed to live up to Forest Park Nature Center in Peoria, the rest of the town better ROCK! Yeah, the place was AMAZING! Hiking trails, biking trails, museum, art gallery, kids' area, indoor birdwatching area, ponds... It was great and the kids loved it. We didn't do much hiking because of my foot, but we went into a pine forest that started out as a Christmas tree farm and the kids were in love. Logan right away decided he could live in Decatur and even Kaylin slowly started to come around. We then drove around town a little, ate at Cheddar's (!) and checked out the shopping mall. We drove back through town to the zoo and children's museum area and were impressed by Lake Decatur, the size of the children's museum and the flamingo and pelican exhibit seen from the zoo parking lot. The zoo was closed for the winter and the children's museum was almost closed for the day so we didn't go inside either. I'm not quite sure how we managed to squander our entire day in Decatur doing next to nothing, but we decided we'll have to go back another day soon and go to the children's museum and find the Caterpillar plant. Overall, I would have to say I could live in Decatur. I picked up several brochures at the nature center and Macon County has a lot of conservation areas and fun stuff to do outdoors. There are plenty of animal shelters and veterinary offices and of course the zoo where I could potentially get a job. It could be a fun adventure.

Thursday, we went to Thanksgiving dinner with my dad's family. The kids had a great time playing with their cousins. Kaylin made green bean casserole and cupcakes, so I didn't have to cook anything :) Kaylin was a bit overwhelmed because the boys decided to play boys against girls in whatever game they were playing and Kaylin happened to be the only girl against 6 boys. Uh, yeah. I don't think the fact that two of the boys are toddlers even helped much. Abbey and Mollie eventually showed up so that evened things a bit. It was a good time.

Friday, the kids went to my parents' house to play with their cousins. I went birding with Meghan. We did our usual circle of Banner Marsh, Emiquon, Lake Chautauqua, Sand Ridge and Spring Lake. At Banner, we watched bald eagles hunt and saw dozens of mute swans. We were shocked by the small number of ducks at Emiquon. Two weeks ago there were thousands and thousands of coots. A report from earlier in the week had tens of thousands of ducks. All of the coots and pelicans from our previous visit were gone, along with the vast majority of the ducks that had been reported earlier in the week. We did see a nice variety of ducks including shovelers, goldeneyes, hooded mergansers, pintails, green winged teal, mallards, grebes, etc. It was shocking that water that was COVERED two weeks ago was now mostly empty. We moved on to Lake Chautauqua and saw a group of 7 swans in a field on the way. Once we got there, we saw another 30+ on the water. I saw my first harrier and several more bald eagles. A nice man with a nice spotting scope gave us a close look at the swans and determined they were tundra swans. Woohoo! Another first! We talked to him about birding for a while and then moved on to Sand Ridge where I think we saw a red tailed hawk and a few sparrows. We stopped at the Jake Wolf fish hatchery because Meghan had never been there. The place is impressive, but as always, we were the only visitors in the incredible museum area run by a bankrupt state. We moved on to Spring Lake where the duck and goose decoys vastly outnumbered the living ducks and geese. We had planned to eat lunch at Larry's Family Bar just because the name is so stupid, but they were closed for the winter. Oh well. We had to drive to Pekin instead.

The birding was a little disappointing because we were expecting to see thousands of ducks, but it was still worth the trip. The icing was a stop at that crazy landscape store in Manito with all the huge lawn statues. I had never been inside and was sort of expecting to find gardening supplies, but the store was full of smaller garden statues and all kinds of cool stuff picked up at sales and auctions. I walked out with a set of 4 owl trivets that I plan to hang in the kitchen, a wooden pig tray and a flying pig garden statue. I LOVED the store and absolutely plan to go back. If you would have told me I'd actually BUY something from that place I would have laughed. It's my new favorite store.

Saturday we put up the Christmas tree. The kids were shocked at how small it is, but THEY picked it out two or three years ago! "Yeah, when we were smaller and it looked huge!" It's probably 5 1/2 feet tall so it's not tiny, but it is on the small side for a tree. I'm fine with it.

I have a doctor appointment for my foot on Monday and I hope he lets me stop wearing the cast, but I doubt it. I'm not in horrible pain or anything, but my ankle just doesn't feel right. The injured tendon still hurts, but I don't even know how to describe what's going on with my ankle. The muscles feel tight. My calf muscles are also tight. I keep putting heat and/or icy hot on them but it's not helping.

Mean Grandparents :)

2011-11-19T04:17:00.000-08:00

Mom and Dad- stop messing with my poor boy. He came to me last night and told me "Grandpa and Grandma ARE moving in with us." I told him that no, they most certainly are not. He sadly said "Yeah, they spent too much money on vacations." I told him that you guys are teasing him. Please confirm this next time you see him!

Thursday I got a cortisone injection in my foot. The doc put me in a huge bandage until Sunday, so I'm back in the surgical shoe that I despise almost as much at the boot. He also told me to "Take it easy." I asked him to define that a bit more but he just laughed at me. It turned out I was in so much "pressure pain" from the injection I had no choice. I didn't sleep much Thursday night because just the pressure of putting my foot on the bed was annoying enough to keep me awake. It hurt to walk on Friday so I spent most of the day Christmas shopping online and playing Angry Birds. By evening the pain was significantly better and I went to dinner with Gene, but I still wouldn't have been able to walk around a huge store. I'm hoping I'll be fine for a grocery trip today and will be back to "normal" tomorrow to go back to work in the boot. Stupid feet!

I keep trying to look up vegetarian recipe ideas, but every time I find a good site I get bored and start following links to more interesting stuff. I don't write anything down and finish as clueless as I started. I hate cooking. Amen.

More Nothing

2011-11-16T00:45:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday, Mom! I'm glad you loved the squirrel ornament so, so much!

I've gone a week without Diet Pepsi and have been beyond surprised that it hasn't bothered me. The aspartame withdrawal I was so dreading never happened. I miss the fizzy feeling in my mouth from soda, but that's about all I miss. I'm not craving it or having to use will power to keep from drinking it. I am drinking tea because I'm not going through caffeine withdrawal at the same time I'm starting a new diet AND in pain with my stupid foot. I need something to keep me going while I'm slogging around in my soaking wet, knee-high cast at work!

The vegan diet is going okay. I've lost a few pounds, but am already bored with the food. I need to force myself to look up new recipes and get new ideas for different foods I can eat, but I find it so boring I look at one and am done. I have not had any noticeable changes in pain levels I can attribute to the diet, but it's only been a week. Also, I'm sure there is a big difference between an acute injury and chronic pain. I will need to get past my tendinitis before I know if my plantar fasciitis is improving. I'm going to get a cortisone shot right after work Thursday, so hopefully that will help. I than have to "keep quiet" the next two days so maybe I'll force myself to look up recipes. Whoop.

Logan was very disappointed to learn that my parents would not be coming for their usual Friday night visit last week because they were on vacation YET AGAIN. He started ranting about how they were spending all their money on vacations and that if they ran out of money and had to move in with us, they most certainly were not going to sleep in HIS bed! It was one of the best rants I've ever heard and has kept me laughing all week. So Mom and Dad, if you carelessly blow through all your money taking vacations, DO NOT assume you will be taking over Logan's room because it ain't happening!

Cast? Noooooooooooo

2011-11-08T00:34:00.000-08:00

Well, my good news is that the doctor released me to go back to work. My bad news is that I'm in the hated plastic air cast for at least a couple of weeks. Ugh. I know it could be much worse, but man, I HATE wearing that stupid cast!

During my time off I was researching different things about tendon injuries and how to heal them. One thing I came across was using diet to reduce inflammation. This interested me because not only do I want my feet to stop hurting, I also need to lose weight. In the past year since I missed a bunch of work for my tendon tear, I stopped exercising (doctor's orders) and gained a lot of weight. I was depressed about my feet hurting all the time and started eating more and more restaurant food, prepackaged food and junk food. My diet soda consumption is at an all time high. It is time to change my evil ways.

I just had an extensive blood panel done through work and other than my weight being too high and my good cholesterol being too low, all of my numbers were good. I need to change NOW, BEFORE my numbers start crashing! I started a vegan diet as a bit of a science experiment. I KNOW it will help me lose weight, the experiment is if it will actually help with inflammation. Will the diet itself help my feet feel better? I think it's worth a shot.

I have WAY more research to do, but starting yesterday, I quit drinking diet soda and switched to tea. I've heard quitting aspartame can be brutal and I don't want to quit aspartame AND caffeine at the same time because I just missed 4 days of work and don't want to miss more. I also eliminated meat, dairy and eggs. At the moment, my diet is centered around fruits and vegetables, oatmeal, quinoa and beans. Lots and lots of beans. I can also have whole grain pastas, rice and breads. I'm going to start out really trying to keep vegan, but seriously, this is about my health, not about not eating animal products. I will still wear leather boots and I'm not giving up my furs. Kidding... I have nothing made of fur. I'm not going to pay big bucks for egg-free bread (if bread is made with eggs- I have no idea.) Anyway, I'm being radical right now in an attempt to lose weight and completely change my eating habits. I doubt I will remain vegan or vegetarian forever unless it truly makes me feel so good I can't go back. I think it's easy to say I'm skeptical about the benefits of this diet, but this is something that if I don't go extreme and instead try to do in baby steps it's not going to happen.

Today is my baby boy's 9th birthday. How is that possible? My tough, strong baby who always knew what he wanted has turned into a tough, strong kid who always knows what he wants. Logan works hard and tries hard; he is neat and organized; he likes rules and takes pride in being good. Logan has always concentrated on his interests and this year they really turned to sports- especially baseball and football. He prefers playing sports, but when he watches them on tv he doesn't watch passively, he studies the players' moves and tries them out. Logan is very interested in weather- especially tornadoes and thunder storms. Instead of watching fire extinguisher safety videos online, Logan now watches storm videos. He knows all the different kinds of clouds and points out tornado sirens on top of buildings. He reminds me so much of the risk manager at the park district it just makes me giggle. Logan, I couldn't be more proud of you or love you more! Happy birthday!

And one last thing... I had an amazing morning of "car birding" yesterday. I was still in the bandage and surgical shoe, so hiking around wasn't an option. Meghan and I drove to Banner Marsh, Emiquon, Rice Lake, Chautauqua, Sand Ridge and Spring Lake. We birded mainly from the nice warm car, only getting out to walk short distances. Banner and Emiquon were the big winners. Banner was teaming with dozens and dozens of swans. They were everywhere! Banner is usually home to several pairs of mute swans, but we scored yesterday and found at least one trumpeter swan. Emiquon was filled with thousands and thousands of coots. Miles of coots. I looked up what a group of coots is called and it is a "cover." The coots were indeed covering Emiquon. There was also a nice mix of pintail, northern shoveler and green wing teal, along with mallards and dozens of white pelicans with probably hundreds more too far away to see more than white dots. We also saw common snipe, grebes and a few bald eagles. Oh, and a snow bunting! It was a very fun morning.

P-T Conferences, 2011

2011-11-05T05:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was one of my least favorite bi-annual events- Parent-Teacher Conferences! I haven't had the best luck with conferences in the past. Tell me my daughter is disorganized and her grades have slipped because she keeps losing her completed homework assignments? Yes. That is so true and we are working on it and she has improved vastly in the past two years. I like to know whether or not my child is participating in class and how they are doing in general. I do not like to have my thigh rubbed and then when I get up to escape, my back rubbed the entire 15 minutes. I think drama is ridiculous and when you tell me with huge eyes and exaggerated arm movements that my child doesn't conform to normal 2nd grade behavior because she jumps in puddles at recess, I will lose all respect for your authority. Especially after you tell me the same child is NOT disruptive in class, but quiet and a good student. Don't scare me to death that my child is falling behind in reading to the point we need to spend $$$$$ on tutoring NOW and then make it completely obvious you haven't attempted to get to know my child at all in his first quarter and really have no idea what his issues are. If a teacher doesn't want to (or doesn't know how to) put forth the effort to get to know a child on a personal basis, fine. That's probably way above and beyond her job description. But if you're going to do that in primary school, at least be like the upper grade teachers and treat the majority of the class like a herd. I'd rather my kids be ignored than have some idiotic teacher try to crush their individuality.

Logan's in third grade this year and has his first good teacher. I've noticed a huge difference in his attitude and willingness to learn, and after the conference I realized why. He hasn't had any bad teachers, but they've all been just okay. Mrs. H has actually made the effort and taken the time to get to know my kid. She laughed about everything from Logan's neat and organized desk to his deep voice. She understands that while Logan enjoys some praise, too much embarrasses him. She wasn't all rainbows and happiness, she also talked about how he likes to daydream and sometimes bounces or shuffles his feet. I don't like this teacher because she kissed my butt, I like her because she gets and appreciates my kid. Anyway, this conference tied for best ever with Kaylin's third grade teacher who was the same way.

I talked with four of Kaylin's teachers and I'll have to poll my teacher friends about whether I should show up for any more of her middle school conferences. I have to admit, I'm ONLY doing these so my name is on the piece of paper. I know she's well behaved and doing just fine. I know her biggest issues are organization and just finding where she put her completed homework assignment. ALL of her bad grades in 4 of 5 classes were due to misplaced homework. Huh huh, that's just something she's going to have to figure out for herself! I'm not wasting one puff of breath nagging her about something so stupid! If she spends the time doing homework and then loses it, that's her problem. I'm definitely not going to check her binders for neatness or clean out her backpack! These are things she needs to learn for herself and much better to learn the lesson in middle school than when she's in her twenties and it actually matters. Anyway, I talked to the four main teachers and not one of them said anything I didn't already know. It was a whole lot of waiting in line for very little information. I sort of felt bad for making other parents wait who may have actually had real concerns and needed to see the teachers.

Kaylin and I both had dental cleaning appointments yesterday afternoon. I have never feared or disliked going to the dentist, but the newest requirement had me squirming. It seems that the government has finally decided that dental health is very much tied into the health of the rest of the body and therefore is much more important than previously believed. Wait, what??? As one can imagine, the dental professionals are more than a bit annoyed at this "amazing news" they (and everyone else of any intelligence) have known forever. Anyway, their governing bodies are now requiring them to do a torturous gum test as part of a cleaning. It involves scoring SIX areas of EACH tooth by jabbing a metal poker into the gums and measuring how far it goes in. It hurts. A lot. I sort of freaked out because I got called back first and was terrified if they tried this on Kaylin she'd be out the door and gone. It's only adults. Phew! I just hope "adults" are not ages 12 and up or we may have to go the sedation dentistry route for basic cleanings!

My foot is significantly better following several days of rest. I'm starting to hope a little that I won't have to wear the air cast at work, but I probably will.

Stupid Foot!

2011-11-03T02:37:00.000-07:00

I'm off work because of my feet again. This time is most likely only for a few days with tendinitis and fluid build-up. I started having some pain at work last Thursday, but my doctor doesn't have appointments on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, so I called first thing Monday morning and made an appointment for Wednesday morning. The pain was totally manageable; I was trying to be proactive and get in to see the doc before it got out of hand. Then Monday morning we had an animal escape drill that had me running all over the zoo. I was in so much pain Monday night I could barely sleep. Tuesday morning I called and begged to be seen. They worked me in at 2pm and my fear that the pain was from the same tendon I tore last year was confirmed. I was immediately sent for an MRI.

The MRI results came back late Wednesday morning. I had to go to the doctor's office (rather than just a phone call) because he wanted to wrap my foot. No new tears, just tendinitis, swelling and fluid build-up. I have a ridiculous bandage that goes all the way to my mid-calf. The bandage is so huge and bulky, I have to wear a surgical shoe. I'm off work until (probably) Tuesday to rest my foot and because there's no way I can work in this bandage/sandal combination. At my appointment Monday, the doctor will decide whether I can go back to work wearing only a brace or if I need the stupid, hated cast. I'm not trying to be negative, but I have little doubt I'll be in the cast. Probably for months... Stupid feet!

This time I can't pinpoint any incident that would have caused tendon injury. He said I must have twisted my ankle or something, but there is absolutely nothing significant I can remember. I often come home covered in bruises I have no idea how I got, but I am so careful with my feet I can't imagine any twisting or jarring that I wouldn't almost panic over and REMEMBER. Oh well, at least I'm not on crutches! I had to use them until my MRI results came back and I have to say I hate crutches even more than I hate the stupid cast!

I'm planning to use my time off to sit on my butt and go through the kids' clothes and toys. Logan just recently started wearing long pants for school and play and I about died laughing at how short they are! He'll be 9 next week and I discovered most of his school pants and jeans are size 7! Whoops! I took him to Farm and Fleet last week and size 10s fit him fine. He has to have 10 slims or they fall off, but the length is good. I then realized that most of Kaylin's long sleeve school uniform shirts are size 7/8. I guess I have some shopping to do! Maybe I can do all or most of it online.

Today is exciting because I'm expecting the UPS delivery of my new binoculars. I broke my beloved old Bushnells and discovered that getting them repaired was going to cost twice as much as I paid for them. Gene's going to attempt to fix them, but it involves perfectly gluing the prism to the roof of the binocs and you have to adjust for glue shrinkage and I really just had to admit to myself that my binoculars are broken. The end. Anyway, I tried out some Nikons at Bass Pro a few weeks ago and then read reviews on Amazon. It turned out they not only had good reviews, but were half the price and with no tax and free shipping. Yes! Today's supposed to be rainy and awful, but I'm hoping to go "car birding" in the next few days and try out the new binocs!

Decisions, decisions...

2011-10-28T03:15:00.000-07:00

The park district is doing some health incentive program where if you get blood drawn, you get a $25 gift card. When I signed up, it seemed like a great idea! But now it's 5:30am and I'm starving and I want caffeine and I have to fast until 7:40am. I signed up late enough that I could drop Kaylin off at school before my appointment. It was a bad decision! Everyone keeps teasing that the only gift card left will be for Sports Authority. We don't even have one around here! I'm going to be ticked if I waste my entire day off with a caffeine withdrawal headache and get stuck with a Sports Authority gift card!

Tomorrow is my 39th birthday and I'm sort of upset about it. My goal at my 38th birthday was to use this year to figure out what to do with the rest of my working life. I mean, I absolutely LOVE my job and the zoo, but it is an extremely physical job that I seriously doubt I will be able to do for more than the next 10-12 years. And only that long if I'm very lucky. There is little to no opportunity for advancement or even movement to another department, so if I want to keep my full time status I need to remain a zookeeper. My feet have been terrible for 2 1/2 years now and I'm tired of being in pain all of the time. Logically, I KNOW it must be easier to switch careers at age 40 than at age 50. At the same time, I love my job and know I will never find anything I like as much. Do I continue working until I am physically unable and THEN try to figure out what to do? Or do I plan ahead and find something else and possibly regret leaving the job I love years before I have to? I could walk out to get the paper and have a tree fall on my head or get diagnosed with terminal cancer or drop dead from a heart attack at any time. Is the gamble to follow logic or to continue working in a dead end job?

I procrastinated making any decisions because it seemed so likely that Gene would be transferred to a different city and that my choice would be made for me. It seemed logical to wait a short time to be in the new place before returning to school or especially job hunting. It's still possible he'll be transferred in the next year or two, so why make any huge decisions now? AAAHHHHHHH!!! Because I'll be a year or two older at that time! I don't know what to do! I know I WANT to stay at the zoo but is that a smart decision?

Screw it! I'm going to stay and see what happens. I bet almost nobody gets to have a job they love as much as I love mine. I'm not going to stress over the what ifs! I'll cross those bridges when I come to them. I'll continue to do what I can to help my feet and maybe they'll get better. Maybe in the next 10 years I can figure out something else to do for the park district when I'm too old for zookeeping. It couldn't be worse than working at Pizza Hut. :)

Weekend Update

2011-10-21T00:41:00.000-07:00

Almost two weeks without a post... Two very bad weeks at work that I can't detail on a public forum have kept me busy.

Willow is getting slightly bigger. She's still tiny, though. Her new favorite thing is play fighting with Tiger. Rather than just playing with his tail, she now likes to boop him in the face. He tolerates it for quite some time and then when he's had enough he flattens Willow with one lazy paw swipe. She, of course, is raring for more. The cats are often curled up together and seem to like each other's company. Duncan, on the other hand, is a pain. He likes to carry Willow around and slobber on her head. He appears rough sometimes, but she usually doesn't back down. Either he's not hurting her and she's brave or she is very stupid. Willow knows all the hiding places Duncan can't reach. Willow's still a little purrball. Right now she's curled up in the bend of my elbow, purring and kneading my shoulder. She's adorable!

Otherwise, we've been keeping busy with school events and Howl-Zoo-Ween. Last night was Taste of Lindbergh. I had been dreading the crowd and the overpriced food. It turned out to be a really neat event. Food tickets were 50 cents each and most food items were a buck. I bought $10 worth of tickets for Kaylin and me, thinking it would never be enough and we stuffed ourselves. They had a baked potato "bar" for a buck! Cups of Culver's custard for a buck. The food was good and cheap. There was also a carnival with games, a bounce house and a balloon twister. Zoe was there so Kaylin had a blast. Logan was sick yesterday so he and Gene stayed home. At first I was jealous they got to skip it, but I think they would have enjoyed it. Next year...

Last week was the chili supper and book fair at Logan's school. I always love book fairs, but this was my 7th chili supper and it hasn't gotten any better. It has supposedly been catered by Alexander's Steak House in years past and by Famous Dave's this year. Mmmmm, right? Wrong! I guess when it comes to mass quantities of cheap hot dogs and chili, even the best restaurants fail. At least it's only once a year!

Hahahaha! Gene and Logan had Five Guys last night and Gene saved me the leftover fries. I was munching on them while writing and Willow wouldn't leave me alone so I gave her one. Tiger was also begging and Willow had to pass him. She made this sort of quiet, but horrible noise and I panicked she was choking. Nah, she was just giving Tiger a warning "yowl" to stay away from her property. A pathetic, weenie sound that sounded more like a man trying to clear his throat quietly. Tiger didn't even glance at her.

Craft Shows

2011-10-09T02:12:00.000-07:00

After a week with us, Willow is fitting in nicely and I have no regrets about bringing her home. What can I say? Baby animals are some of my favorite things and kittens probably top that list. Willow and Tiger are often curled up together and Tiger patiently puts up with her "attacking" his tail multiple times each day. Duncan can be a little rough, but he's patient when the kitten explores his food and that is a huge relief. The worst thing I've seen so far was Duncan carrying Willow around by her scruff. Willow didn't seem to mind at all and it was so cute and funny I just wish I'd gotten a picture. I was laughing too hard to effectively yell at the dog to put the cat down. The kitten was not harmed.

One morning I was in bed with giant Tiger lying on my right shoulder and tiny Willow almost on top of him. Both were staring into my eyes and I realized that despite the fact that Tiger is at least ten times bigger than Willow, their ears are nearly the same size. I hope those ears keep growing with her and that she has ridiculously huge ears as an adult, too! Willow is adorable and she makes all of us very happy.

I just realized that in the past month I've been to more craft shows than I've been to in the entire rest of my adult life. Kaylin really enjoys them and I enjoy taking her, but I found that without her along, it's a flashback to my childhood and I don't enjoy them at all. The craft show at the Pumpkin Festival was a novelty. It was in a fairly small area with lots of people, but not so crowded you were brushing arms. It was fun to look at all the stuff and marvel at how many different people make blown glass pumpkins (that all look pretty much identical to my untrained eye) and especially how many people make hair clips for little girls. We went to the Art Guild show on the riverfront and enjoyed it for what it was, but found it WAY too high class for what we would ever buy. Kaylin and I went to a craft show in Chillicothe that one of my zoo coworkers was in charge of and we actually bought a few homemade cards and some stuff from the bake sale. All of these things were enjoyable time spent with my daughter.

My dad picked up the kids for the day Saturday and I had the brilliant idea that Gene and I should check out the Spoon River Drive. I hadn't gone since childhood and figured it could be a fun way to spend a beautiful day. I thought Kaylin might like it, but knew Logan would probably hate it as I'd hated it at his age. Farmington was the closest major entry point so we headed there. We must have passed 100 garage sales on the way! We stopped at a flea market just inside town. It was sort of fun, but we didn't buy anything. We headed on into town and stopped at a craft show in a park. We were starving and got some good pork chop sandwiches, a spiral cut deep fried potato and an apple dumpling. The food was great, but the park was packed with people and the craft tents were not fun. I would have happily ended our experience there, but we followed a line of cars to a large field just outside of town to the GIGANTIC craft sale that nearly killed me. Rows and rows of junk, cheap t-shirts, handbags and crafts of all kinds. Sooooo many people, sooooo much crap. Yes, I remembered why I hated the Spoon River Drive so much as a child. Next year I will happily skip it.

One last thing- I took Duncan to the dog park for the first time and was thrilled with how well he did. Lynne and I met there at first light Saturday morning. Duncan can be so stupid with other dogs I was a little worried about how he'd act around Lynne's two basset hounds. He played and played, especially with Max. Daphne is older and more interested in sniffing everything than playing, but she's very good natured and had no problem with pesky Terrier Boy. Two other dogs showed up before we left and Duncan did well with them, too. The dog park is all the way on the other side of town so I probably won't go regularly, but it was great to find out that I CAN take Duncan if I want.

Willow

2011-10-02T16:02:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning I needed to pick up a few groceries at Aldi and get some flea medicine for Tiger at the vet's office. Kaylin loves Aldi because it's a quick trip and I always cave on buying her cheap baking supplies. When Logan heard we were going to the vet's office he decided to come along so he could look at the kittens.

Big Hollow usually has a cage full of kittens for sale. They spay/neuter, test for feline leukemia, give first vaccinations, deworm, vet exam and sell the kittens for $100 apiece. It turns out to be a really good deal because all the same services on a free kitten end up costing at least $300. I'm all about adopting from shelters, but baby kittens at shelters are soooo likely to have upper respiratory infections or other illnesses that can be $$$ in vet bills or even be fatal. The Big Hollow kittens are unwanted litters that would otherwise be dropped off at shelters. Anyway, going to look at and play with the kittens is something the kids and I love to do. We have done this many, many times and have always walked out without a kitten. There was absolutely no plan to bring home a kitten on Saturday. The kids knew that and I knew that.

We walked into the packed vet's office and immediately plunked down by the kitten cage. There were 5 or 6 kittens of many colors and hair lengths. There were two kittens who were awake and playful. One liked to claw and bite, the other knew how to keep her claws sheathed and understood how to mouth and not bite. She was tiny compared to the others, but incredibly spunky. We played through the cage and waited and waited our turn. I finally got bored and pulled the kitten out of the cage. The second I touched her she purred like a little motor. She was perfectly comfortable with the bustle of many large dogs around her. She was happy to be turned on her back. She actually seemed to enjoy being passed back and forth between the kids. She was the perfect kitten!

Now, we certainly did NOT go looking to buy a kitten, but it wasn't a complete impulse buy either. Kaylin asked for a kitten for her birthday. She made an adorable kitten box and was terribly disappointed when I said no. I recently asked Logan what he wanted for his birthday and he said the number one thing he wanted was a kitten, though he knew that probably wouldn't happen. I strongly believe a pet belongs to the family, not to an individual. There was no way I could get a kitten for Logan's birthday when I had refused to do the same for Kaylin.

The vet's office cleared out and my turn at the counter finally came. I got Tiger's flea stuff and asked one of my former coworkers if I could take the kitten for a weekend "test drive." They were only open another hour and there was little chance someone else was going to swoop in and buy this kitten before Monday. She said sure, laughed at me and sent me on my way. So long, sucka!

We spent the rest of Saturday making sure the kitten would get along with Duncan and Tiger. Tiger was amazed at the tiny fireball, but didn't get too worked up about it. Duncan was excited and had many bouts of paw on kitten back and nose in kitten butt. Overall, he was pretty good and far more gentle than I could have imagined. He's a little jealous, but he's too independent to care deeply. Oh, and of course we had to run the new kitten by Gene. He acted annoyed, but couldn't help almost immediately falling in love with the weensy furball. She will be staying.

After many hours of suggestions and deliberations, we settled on the name Willow. It was just something we found and liked. It also goes well with the Warrior (series of cat books) names Kaylin wanted. Right now she's Willowkit. When she's 6 moons old she'll be made an apprentice and her name will be Willowpaw. When she is ready to be a warrior she'll receive her warrior name which will be determined by some outstanding feature like WillowWhisker or WillowHeart. If she doesn't grow into her ears she'll be WillowEars.

Everyone should come see her while she's still tiny. Seeing this dinky 1-2# kitten next to 20# Tiger is hilarious. This morning I was eating breakfast and reading the paper. Willow came and meowed and meowed to be picked up so I grabbed her and put her on the table. In a split second she had her entire head dunked into my cereal bowl. This cat may like food even more than fatty-boy Tiger! I don't think she'll stay tiny for long.

Is the Circus in town?

2011-09-26T00:37:00.000-07:00

I've had a busy couple of weeks and have a million things I'd love to update, but few of them can be written on a public forum. One thing I can write about is my visit to the circus.

Zoo people pretend to be vastly superior to circus people. We are exploiting our animals in the name of conservation and education rather than just entertainment. We don't force our animals to perform silly tricks, we train (some of) them in the name of good husbandry and enrichment. Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) zoos are involved in breeding programs to maximize genetic diversity. Staff is college educated. The circus, on the other hand, is an evil animal exploitation machine. The end.

Well, thanks to my dad's generosity, we went to the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus this weekend. I would not have gone on my own even though I sort of wanted to, because it would have been morally reprehensible to spend my hard earned zoo money on such an evil pleasure. Note that I am ONLY referring to the animal acts and not the human ones. Other than the clowns, I don't think showcasing unique talents in the circus arena is evil. But I have to admit, for ME, the only draw to the circus is the animal acts. I think it's Cirque du Soleil that has no animal acts and I have no interest in their shows.

Anyway, I went to the circus and was pleasantly surprised (and secretly slightly disappointed) at the changes in their animal acts. I can remember circuses in years past with adult giraffes being led around the arena, tigers jumping through flaming hoops and the tamer putting his head in the tigers' mouths. Humans stood on horseback and leaped from horse to horse as the brilliantly dressed horses galloped around the rings. Elephants were "stacked" in long lines or made to show their strength. Who could forget King Tusk being paraded around the arena over and over? Every clown act had a dog or an elephant or a monkey. All of the non-tiger animals were paraded around the arena at least three times and many animals (like the giraffe) were only in the parades. Not anymore.

This was a kinder, gentler circus. The tiger act was so lame and boring I could only think that "I" could train the big cats at work to do everything they did. There were no hoops or fire. No human heads in tiger mouths. The most exciting thing the tigers did was hop on hind legs while begging for a piece of meat. Mostly they sat and laid down and rolled over. Basic doggy obedience class. Yawn. The horse act was all ponies with no human riders. They were mostly cute little Shetlands and the focus was on humor rather than stunts. One ring had two cute donkeys and one longhorn (castrated) bull, the center ring had one elephant, one llama and one border collie and the other ring was all Shetland ponies. The acts were all cute and relatively harmless. It was by far my favorite animal act of the night.

The elephants, of course, are by far the most controversial. PETA is extremely against housing elephants in ANY zoo to the point that many large, reputable zoos no longer house elephants. Ok, if a large zoo area with lots of space and training and enrichment is unacceptable, carting a large group of elephants in small train cars and then keeping them in small holding areas for no reason other than exploitation is unfathomable. Hmmm. I honestly don't know where I stand on this. PETA has taken their elephant stance FAR beyond common sense and reason. They are completely blind to the fact that African elephant populations in some of the refuge areas are exploding so much that they either need to be culled or shipped elsewhere (zoos) and that the circus is a major leader in Asian elephant conservation and has come around to responsible breeding for genetic diversity.

There were 8 adult female and 2 young (~2-3 year old) elephants at the circus. All of the elephants were paraded around the arena once at the beginning of the circus and the adults performed their act. (One elephant was also involved in the pony act.) Otherwise, they were not used. I believe only one elephant had a human rider and she did one or two minor tricks with the elephant. I remember she was carried on the elephant's trunk, I can't think of anything else. The elephants sat and laid down. Some of them stepped up onto the round podium things. They mostly just all turned in a circle at once. At one point three of them laid on their sides while three others used them as pillows. That was about it.

There were those three animal acts and one parade involving animals. Otherwise, animals were not used. Oh crud, I forgot the Python Sisters. There were three women who were dancing with large snakes. Get 'em, PETA! But seriously, there were no monkeys or birds, no large animals included only for the sake of parades. There was very little human/animal interaction other than the trainers working their animals. The only time animals were used completely as props was the snake dance. I wonder how much longer animals will be used at all? I mean, the tiger act was boring enough that most people probably won't remember it and the elephant act was so toned down from years past I can't imagine it will continue to be worth the expense. The human acts, on the other hand, seemed much improved over previous years. Maybe the circus can sustain itself without elephants and tigers. I guess I hope...

Stupid Dog

2011-09-16T12:35:00.000-07:00

My dog is ridiculously cute. He's tough and scrappy. He's confident and independent. Duncan wouldn't waste one second of his life whining for my attention. He'll cuddle with me, but only when HE feels like it. I love my little doggie, but he is a nincompoop.

Friday I agreed to spend the day at Sand Ridge State Forest looking for skinks (lizards) for a friend's research project while she's on vacation. I had to check three areas at 7am, 11am and 3pm. I planned to spend the hours between checks birding and decided to take Duncan for company and exercise.

As usual, I was up well before dawn and gathered everything I needed as well as food and water for Duncan. I hauled everything out to the car and was ready to leave when I realized Duncan was missing. I checked all his usual sleeping spots, but he was gone. I went outside and called but got no response. I woke Gene who groggily thought he might be under the house. What? Apparently there is a place in the garage that he can squeeze into the crawl space but then can't get back out. Gene opened the trap door in the living room closet and sure enough, Duncan was down there, bouncing happily to get out. Stupid dog.

I loaded him into the car and set off for Sand Ridge. He loved tearing around at Sand Ridge. I had been a little nervous about all the cacti, but he either avoided them or they didn't bother him. After our first check, we drove ~15 minutes to Lake Chautauqua and walked several miles around the north lake. He had a blast tearing around, up and down the levees. I was busy watching a pair of bald eagles on a huge nest and wasn't paying much attention to Crazy Dog chasing killdeer. After a couple of hours I was FREEZING and decided to drive to Havana for some hot chocolate and food. We jumped back into the car and the smell was so overwhelming "I" thought I was going to puke!

I am rarely bothered by bad smells. I work around so many animals and their waste I don't even notice. The dead fish smell at Chautauqua didn't bother me a bit. However, there was a steady breeze. The dead fish smell on Duncan in the confined space of the car nearly killed me. I can't imagine how bad he must have stunk to make ME gag! I had to drive with the windows open. Back at Sand Ridge I was so desperate I was rubbing sand on him trying to get the stink a little more manageable. Nothing helped. I had some hand sanitizer and considered using it on him, but his skin's so sensitive I figured I'd end up spending $$$ at the vet's office for meds for the rash it would cause. We spent some time at Spring Lake between the next skink checks, but there was just nothing I could think of that helped the smell. We passed two roadkill skunks and their stink was a welcome diversion! I finally finished my last check and set off for the longest hour I've ever spent in my car. I seriously had my sweatshirt pulled up over my mouth and nose most of the ride. I considered "freeing" Duncan on the side of the road more than once!

When we FINALLY made it home, I immediately bathed the dog with a medicated sulfur shampoo. It is for itchy skin and normally I hate the scent, but was extremely grateful the sulfur and coal tar mostly removed the fish stink. I'll have to see if Walmart carries a sulfur air freshener for my car. Seriously, that drive was like sharing the car with a dead 15 pound Asian carp that has been rotting in the sun for weeks. Duncan will be excluded from my next adventure! And I didn't even find any skinks!

Long Weekend

2011-09-04T01:27:00.000-07:00

My 3 day weekend flew by. I had lofty goals that mostly went unmet. I had planned to clean the house thoroughly, but only managed to tackle the kitchen table (which turned out to be a huge project thanks to my messy daughter) and went through my clothes. I always claim to have so few clothes I was completely shocked to fill two large trash bags with stuff for Goodwill. I had stuff in drawers I never open and Rubbermaid boxes in the closet that are out of sight and out of mind. I emptied two drawers and one box completely and got some other stuff moved around so that I may actually wear it this winter.

I had to laugh that pretty much the three hottest days of the entire summer were my three days off. I guess I'm happy for the rest of you who get two gorgeous days as part of your long weekend. I guess it will be nicer to work in the perfect weather and get some fresh air in the buildings and get to watch the animals enjoying the cooler temperatures.

Logan and I went on a toad hunt yesterday morning and found two. I thought we'd keep them for the morning and then release them, but he has big plans to keep them forever. He spent a good part of the early afternoon hunting insects for the toads to eat. I was pretty impressed that he took it upon himself to go online and research what toads eat. He was full of toad facts. I still plan to free the toads when I get home from work tonight, but he can enjoy them another day. I'm sort of glad we didn't free them in a strange place to endure last night's storm, though I guess being amphibians, they might not be opposed to getting wet? I don't know.

Kaylin and I talked all summer about going to the riverfront farmer's market, but never made it until yesterday. It's only on Saturday mornings and is over by noon, so between her ceramics class and Logan's baseball, we just didn't have time. I had great plans for the pie and casserole family, but of course they weren't there. The produce selection at this time of year isn't spectacular, so we wandered around looking mostly at the craft tables. One lady had all kinds of knit hats and scarves. We were attracted to a pumpkin and a candy corn hat, and walked over to find the most amazing, cutest fish hat ever! The gaping mouth goes over your head while the long body and tail of the fish make up the rest of the hat. It has eyes and little fins sticking out on the sides. It seemed insane to buy something like this on a day that was 90F at 11am, but it was too good to pass up. I wonder if she could make me a red river hog hat with tassel ears? Maybe I'll email her...

Ugh. I should probably go reconcile my checkbook and pay some bills before I have to go to work. It was too hard to fit that into my weekend :)

Birds

2011-09-01T14:11:00.000-07:00

Since I worked last Saturday, I got a 3 day "weekend" this week, with Thursday, Friday and Saturday off. My big plan was to explore Emiquon nature preserve and hopefully see a lot of birds. That, of course, was before I saw the weather forecast for near-100F temperatures. I waffled about whether to go or not, but decided I might as well give it a shot.

I took Kaylin to school and headed to Emiquon. I stopped briefly at Banner Marsh on my way, but there wasn't much bird activity on the lake. Today was the opening day of dove season and there appeared to be many hunters so I didn't get out of my car. I pulled into Emiquon and everything appeared still. I got out and started hiking the walking trail and saw all kinds of shorebirds. Sandpipers were everywhere. Killdeer were so plentiful they seemed to outnumber insects. Great blue herons and great egrets mingled with mallards, wood ducks and mergansers. Terns circled and swooped. Flocks of swallows skimmed the water and migrating blackbirds and starlings filled the trees. It was hot, but there was a nice breeze and the trip was totally worthwhile.

I moved on to Chautauqua and was disappointed that my hundreds (or thousands) of white pelicans were replaced by gulls. There were plenty of killdeer with occasional unidentified sandpipers mixed in. The dead fish from a few weeks ago were now piles of much less smelly bones. I wished I had a video camera with a great zoom because the killdeer running around on the fish skeletons were morbidly funny. There was no shade and despite downright windy conditions, the sun was harsh and the temperature was well above 90F. I didn't stay too long, but just as I was starting to walk back to my car a flock of ~20 pelicans flew right over my head. That definitely made the trip worthwhile. Oh, I also saw a group of turkey vultures on the ground and got excited thinking one of them was a black vulture because it had an all black head. When it took off flying it had the signature turkey vulture white band along the wings so I'll have to look up if juveniles have black heads? Interesting...

I drove through Sand Ridge State Forest on my way home, but it was noon and nearly 100F and nothing was out and about. I decided to skip Spring Lake this trip and instead went to the new Big R store in Pekin. It was sort of a cross between Farm and Fleet and Gander Mountain, with prices closer to Gander Mountain. It was an ok store, but Farm and Fleet is better.

I've got a meet the teacher open house at Logan's school tonight, an amphibian conservation talk at the zoo and then a cookout tomorrow night and otherwise plan to spend the rest of my time off cleaning the house. We'll see if that actually happens. :)

Back to School

2011-08-29T01:47:00.000-07:00

The first week of school came and went. Both kids seem happy with their teachers. As usual, I have gotten almost no information from Logan; he is highly offended by any and all personal questions. I will just have to be patient and listen and eventually I will learn what little I actually need to know. :) Kaylin is thrilled to be back with her friends and happy to no longer be a lowly 5th grader. Apparently 5th grade at the 5th-8th grade middle school is equivalent to being a freshman. She's excited to start band this week. I guess I'll get more information at their back to school open houses next week.

Kaylin is finally over her illness. She still has an occasional cough, but the fever and prolonged coughing fits are gone. The antibiotics never worked so I'm assuming it was a virus of some kind. I hope it was the flu and that since she already had it and the rest of us were exposed and didn't get it, we'll have a flu-free winter. A girl can dream...

I worked another Saturday and will get a three day (Thursday-Saturday) weekend again this week. It stinks only having one day for rest and chores, but that three days off makes it totally worth it! I hope to take one day and go birding. Emiquon is screaming my name! I'm not even sure why since I've never had any real luck there, I just REALLY want to go! I'm sure I'll hit Banner Marsh and Chautauqua as well. I'm itching to get out there. Oh, and Gene fixed my favorite binoculars, so I won't have to use my backup pair. Bring on the birds!

Otters? Snake? Illness?

2011-08-20T17:05:00.000-07:00

Kaylin has been sick all week. Last Sunday I came home from work and she was crashed miserably on the couch with a sore throat and fever. Monday was more of the same so Gene and I tag-teamed work, with Gene staying home in the morning and me coming home early. Gene took her to Proctor First Care where she refused a strep test and was given some antibiotics. Tuesday morning I was very surprised to find her still feverish. Wednesday and Thursday were repeats. What was weird was that while she had this on-again, off-again fever, she seemed to continually get a little better. She was never miserable again, but every time I thought she was getting better, she'd go from a normal temperature to a slight to moderate fever. Somewhere along the line she developed a pretty bad cough that is productive, but her chest doesn't seem too congested. She's sick enough that she missed the whole week of camp, but was eating almost normally and spending a good deal of her day playing normally. Friday I was off work and Kaylin was bored to death and begging to leave the house. We went to Toys R Us and did a couple of quick and minor errands. She was fine all afternoon. Friday night Gene had planned to take the kids to a baseball game but I didn't want Kaylin to go. She was ok with that, but begged me to take her for a haircut. (Which, warning Mom, is now as short as my hair.) She was fine after the haircut so we ran into Wal-Mart for some flea treatment for the pets. By the time we got home her temperature was 101.4F. This (Saturday) morning she woke up with a fever again and has been back and forth between fine and feverish all day. Argh! Of course now I'm freaking out about the neverending fever and it's Saturday and I don't want to take her to a prompt care for what should be a recheck! I've managed to calm down and realize she's not really that sick and that she'll likely be fine to wait to see the doctor on Monday. I just hope soooooo much she's better and can go to her first day of school! At this moment she's labeling and packing school supplies and has every intention of going to school whether she's sick or well. Haha- like mother, like daughter on that one.

Logan and I went to a reptile show at Lakeview Museum and then finally went to their Moneyville exhibit. I can't believe Kaylin and I were at Lakeview almost every week this summer and never managed to make it to their summer "kiddie" exhibit. I guess we were always in a hurry to get to Logan's baseball games the second her ceramics class was over, but Logan's favorite thing in the world is money and we were all looking forward to Moneyville. It turned out to be pretty fun. The major highlight was creating a printed sheet of three paper dollars with backgrounds and denominations of your choice and your picture on front. Logan and I both have personalized million dollar bills. He was very impressed! Logan was also impressed with the reptiles and now wants a snake. He at first wanted a lizard, but I explained how incredibly much work lizards are and he agreed a snake would make a better and easier pet. We'll see. I'm not at all opposed to a pet snake. Someday...

I headed back out to Banner Marsh before sunlight Friday morning. It was just twilight when I pulled in and while I could see, all the birds and other animals were just silhouettes. I immediately climbed to the top of the levee and had walked about 100 yards south when I saw movement in the water. Two long-bodied mammals who appeared to have skinny tails swam toward the bank and were almost immediately lost behind very tall grass. I stood in shock and waited for more motion for at least 5 minutes before resuming my hike. The animals were too big to be muskrats, there was no beaver lodge in the area and they didn't appear to have come on land because I would have seen the grasses moving. Unless they swam a very long way underwater, they likely swam into a hole on the bank. There are beavers all over at that lake and the ones I've seen all appear to have made a lodge and live in deeper water. I'm about 90% sure I saw otters. But oh, that nagging, horrible 10% of doubt!

I walked on and found the active osprey nest on the power line tower. Both osprey were at the nest. I saw tons of indigo buntings, kingfishers, goldfinches, herons and ducks. There were large flocks of swallows, blackbirds and starlings. I saw three beavers in different areas, raccoons and a huge buck, but no more otters or potential otters. When I got back to the area I saw the otters, I went closer to the lake and found what I believe to be otter tracks. Exciting and a fun day regardless of whether the animals I saw were otters, but I don't feel like I can "quite" count my sighting. I guess I'll keep up the hunt. It'll be a hardship :)

Psycho Killer

2011-08-13T15:10:00.000-07:00

We have at least two more young raccoons in the crawl space and garage. They are sort of ruining my life because Duncan barks at them all night as they're prowling around and once he gets started it takes him FOREVER to calm down enough that I might possibly go back to sleep. Last night I was trying to think of different ways to kill the raccoons. They were huddled together at the top of a ladder and completely vulnerable to my attack. I was so sleep deprived my best idea was to duct tape a kitchen knife to a broom handle and stab them. I was seriously getting ready to do it when I realized a steak knife isn't going to kill anything. I mean, I suppose if I was extremely full of rage and insanity, maybe I could kill something, but poking a raccoon with a steak knife on a stick probably won't even cut it, much less kill it. It would just be extremely cruel. Poke. Poke. I gave up on my killing spree and spent the rest of the night in my recliner, hissing at Duncan to be quiet every 5 minutes for the remainder of the night.

Logan and I went out to breakfast this morning for the first time since school got out. He's either had camp or baseball all summer so it was nice to have some one-on-one time with him. We then did our big weekly grocery trip at Wal-Mart. I offered to get him some "special" school supplies but he didn't even want to look. I didn't push it. We went to the sporting goods department and looked at baseballs instead.

Kaylin, Duncan and I went to McNaughton Park in Pekin for some exercise and fun playing in the creek. There was a new horse trail since the last time I was there and we took it by accident rather than the trail to the creek. It was full of horrible burrs that embedded their long spines into my fingers when I tried to remove them. Poor Duncan got some of them buried in the pads of his feet deep enough that I had to separate his pads to see them. He was lying on his back on the trail refusing to move. I felt terrible because the first couple of times I looked at his feet I didn't even see the burrs. Once I pulled them out he was fine and actually wore himself out tearing around the woods and creek. Kaylin had a good time searching for frogs and tadpoles and wading in the creek.

We came home and napped in front of a Disney Channel Phineas and Ferb movie. It's been the best weekend I can remember for a long, long time. I did lots of cool stuff on my own and with family. I got plenty of rest and managed to get my chores done. I think tonight Kaylin and I are going to paint some rocks. I want a pig rock. Logan's out playing baseball, Kaylin's playing capture Duncan in the blanket, Gene's making dinner (his choice) and I'm writing. It's a perfect summer afternoon. The kids have one more week of day camp at the Riverplex and they go back to school. I'm not looking forward to homework and structure. Ugh. It's been a great summer and I don't want it to end!

Susy's Big Adventure

2011-08-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

I worked Saturday last week and got this Thursday off in return. That meant a 3 day weekend! I tried to talk the kids into going somewhere with me. They've been wanting to go to St. Louis forever, but they wanted to go to their last two days of Camp Zone. Fine, but I'm not going to hang around home. I'm gonna go look for some wildlife! Outside! In the wild!

Thursday I took the kids to camp at the usual time. I packed a few things in case I decided to spend the night somewhere and headed north on Route 29. I stopped at the Marshall County Conservation Area where I found a cool turtle shell and saw some turtles still in their shells. My goals were to follow the Illinois River Road until I got to Starved Rock and Matthieson State Parks and then head to Bloomington/Normal to Lake Evergreen and the zoo. Just before crossing the river near Hennepin, I saw about 30 turkey vultures circling. There were big power line towers next to the river that were just covered in vultures. I've never seen so many in one place (other than the safari ride at Disney World.) It was awesome!

I stopped at Starved Rock and went to the riverfront and to the visitor center. I walked around a little, but it was so crowded I just wasn't feeling it so I moved on to Matthieson. I'd never been there before and had big expectations. The canyons were amazingly beautiful, but they were also full of screaming camp children and lots and lots of garbage. I hiked around for a while, but wanted solitude and moved on to Lake Evergreen. Ahhhhhhh. Peace and quiet and nature. I took a long hike around part of the lake and saw lots of birds and butterflies. It was exactly what I needed. I then drove into town and went to Miller Park Zoo, the Gingerbread House toy store and Meier. After all that I was beat and couldn't think of any reason to stay in town so I headed home for the night.

I've been wanting to see wild river otters for a long time and have googled and googled different searches trying to figure out where to see them around Peoria. I've found blog postings and different mentions of sightings, but no definite locations. I finally thought to email a former coworker's husband who is a state fish biologist. He said that in all his years on the local rivers and lakes, he's only seen 3 live otters; they were all together and he was in an air boat at Emiquon. I want to see them while on foot. He told me to climb to the top of the levee at the Bell's Landing entrance at Banner Marsh and walk and look and best of luck. I got to Banner Marsh a little after 5am, at first light. At first I didn't quite understand where I was supposed to go so wasted a good half hour of first light hiking at lake level with 10 foot high grasses and foliage blocking my view. I then realized I was supposed to go ON TOP of the levee and look down. It was AMAZING!!! I saw an osprey hunting, all kinds of cool songbirds, lots of swans with their adorable mini-me cygnets. (The cygnets no longer look like babies, they look like miniature swans.) A great horned owl flew over. I walked and walked and walked. I was soaking wet from the high grass and the dew so I gave up on otters and headed back to the car. On my way back I saw a beaver dragging a big tree limb through the water back to its den. Very cool.

I moved on to Emiquon and was VERY impressed with their new area. I watched great egrets catching and eating fish and checked out some ducks and shorebirds before a huge van load of Japanese tourists pulled up with a guide and interpreter and I moved on. I couldn't decide whether to head back to Banner Marsh for some more birding in the other entrance areas or move on to Chautauqua. The last time I was at Lake Chautauqua it was windy and I saw nothing but some blackbirds and swallows. This time I was not disappointed. There was a huge migration of American White Pelicans. There were hundreds or maybe even thousands of pelicans. They were everywhere! The water level in the North Lake was way down and there were also dozens of great egrets and lots of sandpipers and other shorebirds. The drawback was that since the water level was low, there was a HUGE, stinky fish die-off. Dead Asian carp were EVERYWHERE. And they were covered with flies. It was pretty disgusting, but totally worth it for the zillion pelicans.

I drove through Sand Ridge State Forest and saw some indigo buntings and a pileated woodpecker and then headed to the Jake Wolf Fish Hatchery. I've been there before, but it was closed. I was shocked at how nice this place was and NOBODY else was there. Super-duper use of our tax dollars. I hope funding the public aspects of this place isn't taking money away from Wildlife Prairie State Park. That would be a shame! The final stop on my big adventure was at Spring Lake. The lake was so covered with lily pads there were no boats and only a few people fishing. I watched the swans for a few minutes and saw an interesting stilt bird I have yet to identify, but didn't bother looking for snakes or mammals because the lily pads were too thick. I was home before 1pm and so tired I took a nap.

It was an absolutely awesome two days of nature and wildlife! I spent less than $20 on food and used just under a tank of gas. I'm guessing my "mini vacation" cost just over $50. Totally worth it! And I still have another day off!

School Supplies

2011-08-03T02:41:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've updated, but we've just been busy with nothing particularly exciting. Gene and Logan did take a bus trip to a Cubs/Cardinals game in St. Louis and they had a great time. As usual, I didn't get a lot of details and since I wasn't there, don't have a lot to write. Kaylin and I spent our day without the boys shopping for school supplies and hanging out at home. Kaylin appreciates office supply stores and loves choosing the perfect binder, the perfect backpack and getting to pick the purple scissors. She loves the look and smell of a new box of crayons and the mere existence of a fresh pink eraser. I've loved office supply stores ever since the first time I went to Widmer's with my dad for mechanical pencils and adding machine tape. We had a good day.

Logan continues to shock and disappoint with his complete lack of enthusiasm for school supply shopping. I think the only way I could get any reaction out of him would be if I bought him Barbie or Disney Princess folders. He honestly couldn't care less if he's sent back to school with a new box of crayons or a ripped up baggie full of last year's nubs. One time at the annual school book fair he asked for an eraser because it looked like a hundred dollar bill. That's likely the most excitement he's ever shown for a school supply. And yes, that eraser is in his last year's pencil pouch that will be returning this year because why would I buy him a new one when the old one is near-mint?

I don't want summer to end, but this neverending heat is taking its toll. It is kicking my butt. My job is hard enough without it being a bazillion degrees. I literally peel my clothes off at the end of the day. I feel like a human fruit roll-up. The kids don't seem to be bothered at all. I pick them up from camp at 5 and they are still running around and come home to run around some more. Then they whine about having to take a shower! Sheesh! The shower is the highlight of my day!

Summer winding down?

2011-07-23T11:59:00.000-07:00

Baseball season is over. Or as the puke-a-riffic White Sox announcer Ken Harrelson would say, "Ova." Next year Logan will move from the Coach Pitch league to the Minors. His coach approached Gene today and told him he wants to work with Logan and a few of the other boys during the off season. I think that would be awesome. Coach wants to work with the better, more serious boys on pitching. Hooray! I hope he actually does. I'll have to remember this final season of Coach Pitch as the year Logan was the best on his team. It was pretty cool and he loved every second of it.

I'm pretty sure we finally caught the last of the baby raccoons. There ended up being 6 babies and mom. The morning we caught mom I had to be at work at 7am and have the kids at camp before that. I didn't have time to don my Carhartts and dispose of the nasty thing. That decision came with a huge price tag! Gene called Critter Control and they charged us $158 to come pick up and dispose of an already trapped raccoon! I will NEVER deal with them again unless we have a grizzly bear inside the house! What a rip-off! The final two baby raccoons took a full week to catch. They kept springing the trap and managing to get all the food inside, but continued to escape. Hilariously, they started using the cat box in the garage. Um... I guess that was pretty nice of them :) I'm just glad they're finally gone and we can leave the dog door open at night. I had an AWFUL couple of weeks having to get up every night to let Duncan out. If I wake up after about 1am, I'm usually up for the day. I was pretty sleep deprived.

I finally saw Harry Potter and loved it! I thought it was the most true to the book movie of them all. I could have happily lived without the 3D flaking off of dying Voldemort's skin, but otherwise it was pretty awesome.

Kaylin has one more week of ceramics class and then our extra summer activities are over. School starts in just over 4 weeks! I'm as tired of the extreme heat as everyone else, but the summer is going too fast. The kids are having a blast at day camp and always dread the transition from carefree days full of friends and fun to structured days of boring schoolwork. Kaylin talks about camp all year long. Next year is technically the last year of camp for Kaylin, but she (right now at least) wants to be a junior counsellor until she's old enough to get a real job. I hope she does! I don't know how my kids could have a more fun summer than they do at this camp. Every day is filled with friends, sports, swimming, fishing, games, field trips, movies and other activities. It's probably as close to an old fashioned childhood as a kid can get these days!

What a week!

2011-07-16T02:39:00.000-07:00

My kids have seen the Harry Potter movie and I have not. That will change today! I am going to work it in somewhere around the grocery trip, laundry, haircuts, baseball game, ceramics class, etc.

This week was possibly one of the craziest of my life. It was a roller coaster of potential change and emotion that came out of nowhere and just as suddenly came to an abrupt end. In 4 days time I went from a doo dee dee, ho hum normal existence of home, work and camp to strongly considering a major move, a probable career change, new schools for the kids- an upheaval of my entire world with no warning! It was at once exhilarating and terrifying, overwhelming and exciting, stressful and fun.

At work I waffled. How could I leave these animals and this job I love??? But I could find something that wouldn't be so hard on my feet, a job that wouldn't leave me so physically exhausted at night. But, the animals!!! At home I waffled. We could get out of this house Gene hates and away from the annoying neighbors! We could move somewhere I could have a few chickens and maybe even a pig! But... how can I take the kids from their schools and friends? Hooray! A new adventure! Yikes! A new adventure! Back and forth, back and forth.

In four days' time Gene went from life as usual, to an email, to meetings with his boss, to a preliminary interview, to being denied by HR because he just accepted a promotion earlier this year and has to fulfill a time obligation in his current position. Phew! Sigh. The boss at the other facility told Gene to call him in 18 months. Definitely something to think about!

I guess overall I'm relieved, but disappointed. I've ALWAYS wanted to at least try living somewhere else. However, I love my job and am comfortable and secure here. This would have been a fast transition. It will be nice to have some time to think things through. We never said anything to the kids because we knew there was a good chance HR would deny the transfer. I think Gene feels mostly the same as me- disappointed, but mostly relieved!

Raccoon Invasion

2011-07-12T01:22:00.001-07:00

While we were on vacation, a family of raccoons decided to move into our garage. Super! I'm guessing they came in through the doggy door and am SOOOOOO happy they did not come into the house through the other doggy door! (We have one from the house to the garage and one from the garage to the back yard.) When we got home and were unloading the van, I immediately took the laundry bag and put it in the washer (in the garage.) I thought it was extremely odd that the self-filling water bowl was full of mud and that all of the cat food was gone. Later, Gene brought in a board or piece of plastic or something covered with poop and was furious that Tiger had skipped using the litter box. I was like "That looks like raccoon poop! Some of it is filled with berry seeds." Gene proceeded to find a HUGE mess and then Duncan found at least one raccoon back behind the water heater.

We've been slowly trapping them one per night. There are at least 5 babies and the mom. So far we've caught 3 babies and I just went to check and found mom. The babies are probably 2/3 grown and weaned, so I don't feel too bad about relocating them. I can't bring myself to kill them and really don't have a clue how I would go about doing that anyway? (Seriously, I don't have a gun or a stash of euthanasia serum. I don't think I could safely "bop off" a raccoon with a quick smack and neck break. That pretty much leaves drowning or some other horrendously cruel method. No.) I just read in Sunday's paper that you shouldn't catch and release raccoons because they spread disease, but I just don't know what else to do. I don't want to pay someone to do something I can do for free!

That is, I DIDN'T want to pay someone before I caught mom! Baby raccoons are scared and cute and you open the cage and they shoot into the woods. Mama raccoons are evil and scary and smart enough to be terrified of humans and want to defend themselves. They are stupid enough to watch 3 of their babies get trapped and then get trapped themselves, but smart enough to want to shred what is threatening them. I don't want to get shredded!!! Or get rabies shots. Perhaps I'll break down and call Critter Control for mama. Or else I'll put on my winter Carhartt's and take my chances. Probably the latter...

As I write, I'm also listening carefully because I baited the dog crate with food hoping to catch the remaining two babies together and be done with this ordeal. They were climbing around the garage when I found mama raccoon trapped so I know they're out there. I'm sure it'll work, right?

Back Home

2011-07-07T13:38:00.000-07:00

The kids were tired of swimming and MagiQuest so we stuffed ourselves at the breakfast buffet and went to the arcade one last time. We then headed into town and went to the Wisconsin Deer Park. I have no idea what possessed me to want to go there, but we had a blast! It was such a dumb place, but we were just surrounded by deer begging for crackers. It was so ridiculous we laughed the whole time we were there. They also had 3 pink piglets and a bunch of those chickens that have a puff ball of feathers on their heads. They actually had a wide variety of other animals, including deer from around the world, bison, emus, rhea, lemurs, goats and rabbits. It was a fun end to what turned out to be a really fun vacation.

We headed out of town around 11:30 and drove straight home. The kids came with me to pick up Duncan and I think we may have spent an hour playing with a litter of adorable kittens before we even approached the counter to pay and retrieve the dog. Kaylin is begging and begging for an adorable orange tabby with white paws. Its name is "Socks" and she wants to change it to "Sox" so Gene will love it. I have to admit that I've always wanted an orange tabby. I might cave on this... Must. Remain. Strong. We did eventually get the dog and he was thrilled to see us. As was Tiger-cat.

Logan made it to his baseball game and made an amazing catch, aided in almost every out and hit the only homer of the game. One of the parents from the other team remarked "Whoa, they have a ringer!" Indeedy.

Today I did some laundry and spent 5 hours cleaning Logan's room. Ugh. I wanted to do both kids' rooms today, but if Logan's took 5, Kaylin's will take 10 or more. Such a depressing waste of my final vacation days :(

More Vacation

2011-07-06T03:13:00.000-07:00

We went back and forth over what to do Tuesday night. Should we head home? The kids wanted to move from Great Wolf Lodge to Kalahari. I checked into that but the price difference was staggering. Especially if we wanted to add their "indoor playground" of rides and games. Our hotel checkout receipt (the one they slip under your door) had a cheap return offer. I went to the front desk and told them we were planning to leave and go to Kalahari, but if they gave me the return offer for tonight, we'd stay at Great Wolf. I wouldn't have needed to state my spiel, they gave me the deal and even offered to upgrade our room at no cost. That was nice, but the biggest bonus to staying another night was to NOT have to pack up and change hotels/rooms.

We headed into the Dells and found a shady miniature golf course right on the river. It was insanely hot so the shade and the breeze from the river were major benefits. I usually stink at mini-golf, but for some reason yesterday was "on." I won at only a few strokes above par. The kids really wanted to do go karts so we found a place we'd never been. It was only $3 per car and since the kids were too short to drive their own cars they were free! WHOOOOO!!! Six bucks for go karts! Yeah, shoulda known there'd be a catch... These were NOT big double-seaters, they were regular-sized karts with a smaller seat scrunched in. Kaylin and I were smooshed together with her body pressing my leg so tightly into the steering column I actually have a bruise! It was a rough ride and Gene felt sick afterward. Both kids were disgusted they didn't get to drive their own karts. Oh, well, at least it was only six bucks!

We returned to GWL and Gene took Kaylin and Logan to the arcade while I headed back out and went to the International Crane Foundation. They have (and I saw) all 15 kinds of cranes on display. My favorites are the (I think) sarus cranes that stand 6 feet tall. They're the tallest flying birds and are really cool. I got there just in time for a guided tour I stayed for part of, but then deserted because I had a time limit. I found Gene and the kids in the arcade and they had won enough tickets for Kaylin to get a giant crayon pillow and Logan a giant inflatable baseball bat. Ah, super... They were very excited and had a great time.

We've spent hours and hours at the waterpark. I'm thrilled that Kaylin loves ALL of the slides now. She used to be terrified of anything that went through an enclosed tunnel (pretty much ALL of them) because she thought they'd be dark. This trip she did even the scariest slide over and over and the times I went with her she complained bitterly because my weight slowed the tube down and the ride wasn't as good as when just she and Logan went. Logan has always been a slide junky and this trip was no different than usual.

Today we'll head home. I'm not sure if we'll swim or do MagiQuest or hit the arcade one last time or all of the above? I want to be home in time to pick up Duncan before 6pm and Logan wants to go to his baseball game at 5:30. We'll see...

Vacation!

2011-07-04T11:35:00.000-07:00

We're in the middle of the summer vacation I had not been looking forward to at all. The House on the Rock and Wisconsin Dells. Whoop-dee-doo. A place I never wanted to go in my life and yet another waterpark resort in a tourist trap town. Yawn. Ok, well, a lot of our New Mexico vacation was all about me. I got to go to Florida with Meghan earlier this year. I will put up and shut up. Gene and the kids will have a wonderful time and I'm sure I'll have fun even though we're not going somewhere new and exciting.

I can't BELIEVE I am admitting this, but I did not regret any time I spent at the House on the Rock. I didn't just find it tolerable, I loved it. I would be more than happy to go back someday. The doll carousels were pretty creepy, but the music machines, the main carousel and the organ room were awesome! The house itself was awesome. I even enjoyed the Alex Jordan museum area and plan to read more about him. The man was insane in an unbelievably cool way. Kaylin and Gene were cuckoo for the place and even Logan really liked it. I think the guy who created the City Museum in St. Louis must have gone to the House on the Rock and decided to create a similar place, but one that people could play on all the exhibits. Wow. My name is Susy and I love the House on the Rock.

Lacking many other options in the dink town of Dodgeville, we also stayed at the House on the Rock Inn. It wasn't as quirky as I would have liked, but it did have a pretty awesome pool area with a submarine playground for the kids and an outdoor pool with a dragon fountain. The kids loved the place. Gene and I liked it fine, but I don't know if I'd bother staying there again.

On the way to Dodgeville, we stopped at the Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium in Dubuque, Iowa. I had never been there and had been told it was a really cool place. I should have read and taken in the order of "museum and aquarium" because I have to admit I was expecting way more aquarium exhibits. I was really excited when we pulled up and saw two separate buildings. Then we went inside and it was mostly museum. It was a really good museum, but I had been expecting a really good aquarium so I was a little disappointed. They had tons of interactives and some outdoor areas with walk-through boats so the kids enjoyed it. My highlight was getting attacked by a very territorial nesting red-winged blackbird. He divebombed my head over and over and scared me half to death, but since I walked away unhurt and alive it was a pretty cool experience. At least in retrospect...

We're currently at Great Wolf Lodge in Wisconsin Dells. The kids have spent hours at the waterpark and Gene and Logan hit the arcade while Kaylin and I went to MagiQuest. Since Kaylin's now old enough to do everything on her own, I went ahead and got myself a wand this trip. I worked my way up to Master Magi by completing a bunch of fun interactive scavenger hunts. Kaylin is on Level 7 or something. We're planning to go back in a little while. Gene and Logan are at some place across the parking lot riding go karts and bumper cars. GWL is having a big 4th of July party this afternoon with games and contests. They're even having their own fireworks show tonight!

This morning I got up early and headed to Necedah National Wildlife Refuge. It is a 40,000 acre preserve that is a release point for whooping cranes and gray wolves. It is also home to jillions of sandhill cranes, bears, otters, badgers, and tons of other animals. I had been there about 30 seconds when I saw my first sandhill cranes and deer. I drove for miles and miles around the vast preserve and saw all kinds of birds and small mammals. The sandhill cranes were all over the place! I finally made my way to a pair of lakes and saw the unmistakable whooping cranes. They were as far away as they could get, but still looked huge! I needed my binoculars to even SEE sandhill cranes that were closer. I took a picture with my point and shoot camera zoomed at maximum and I'm sure if the cranes even show up they will look like white dots. Whatever, it was really exciting! I'm glad I didn't take Gene and the kids because it was possibly the buggiest place I've ever been. I took one mile-long hike and had bugs buzzing around my head the entire time. I didn't find any ticks on me, but found one crawling on the inside of the car window. The place was so huge and confusing I got completely lost and ended up having to drive back through the nearby town from an opposite direction and all the way back to the entrance I knew. I would love to go back in the fall during their peak waterfowl migration and in the early spring when the songbirds are migrating through before the trees leaf out.

Kaylin's done resting and ready for more MagiQuest!

My Baseball Boy

2011-06-30T00:41:00.000-07:00

Logan's intensity and hard work are really paying off at the ball field. The kid is amazing! In a league where half the kids are still clueless about basic baseball rules, Logan is completely focused on every aspect of the game. He keeps track of every out and every run for both teams. He hustles (sometimes too fast) and backs up other players without being a ball hog. He loves the game but still has fun with his teammates. Last night he hit a grand slam, a two run homer and a single. It was awesome!

It's REALLY weird to be the completely nonathletic, non-competitive parent of the "best kid on the team." I mean, I am SO PROUD of Logan's hard work, but I honestly couldn't care less if he's one of the best or worst players. The ultra-competitive parents scowl at Gene and me and we have even been asked about our "secrets" to getting him so focused. HA!!! As if we send him to private lessons with the Chiefs' batting coach or something! The "secret" is that LOGAN goes out and hits ball after ball after ball. Either by himself or with (mostly) Gene or me. He's out there every single day. When he takes a break from playing the game, he's watching every move the big leaguers make so he can imitate them. Then he begs Gene to hit balls to him so he can practice catching.

I never in a million years would have thought Gene and I could produce an athletic child. I'm pretty sure Gene is enjoying every second of our little run of "fame"- as he should. I am enjoying the thought that the competitive parents are looking at these uncoordinated doofuses and wondering if Logan was adopted? Relax, folks, the kids are only 8. Your kid will most likely get the baseball scholarship over mine. None of them are going to make it to the Majors. I'm just thrilled my kid is capable of such focus and drive. Hopefully these things will serve him well in the future.

Quicky update

2011-06-27T17:43:00.000-07:00

Well, all good things must come to an end. The neighbor kids were in the house last night. Sigh. Oh well, it was a fun few weeks. I think my kids are sort of outgrowing them anyway. Logan wants to play sports 24/7 and the neighbor boys want to play video games and with trucks. Kaylin and Little Girl are also expressing their different interests. They'll still play together regularly, just (hopefully) not every moment we're home and awake!

Working for the weekend

2011-06-21T01:38:00.000-07:00

I agreed to cover my usual Friday/Saturday days off for a coworker so he could go to a wedding this upcoming weekend. However, the way our pay periods work, we couldn't just trade weekends. I had to take two Mondays off instead of his usual Monday/Tuesday "weekend." Actually, I chose Mondays hoping Meghan would be able to go to a zoo or birdwatching one of those days. Yesterday we went to Brookfield Zoo and had enough fun that I'm hoping the memory will carry me through the next 6 straight days of work followed by one day off.

It was a rainy Monday morning and I picked up Meghan on the way to drop the kids off at day camp. We figured Brookfield has plenty of indoor exhibits and the threat of rain would keep the masses away. We were right. It turned out to be a beautiful day (lower or mid-70s) with some occasional very light rain and small crowds. The majority of the animals were outside, or if they were inside, they were visible in their indoor exhibit. The only animals I remember not seeing that I wanted to see were the red river hogs. And really, that's not much of a disappointment when I work with 10 of them every day!

One of the most exciting parts of the day was on the drive. We were almost to the zoo and stopped at a very long light when each of us noticed a hawk on a light pole. We quickly realized we were looking at different birds of the same type. They had a very distinctive pattern on their heads and Meghan said "I think they're peregrines!" I didn't think peregrines were that large and made her look them up in my bird book. Sure enough, a pair of peregrine falcons! My first! I think Meghan's first, too, but regardless, we were very excited.

Back to the zoo... We toured around and saw a baby wombat, an active aardvark, the beautiful new bear and bison exhibit, baby roadrunners, a very playful baby sea lion, lots of active big and small cats, dolphins and even two kinds of walkingsticks. It seemed that everything was active on this cool, cloudy day. Our last stop was The Fragile Desert building. We will soon be getting rock hyrax at our zoo and wanted to check them out. Our goal was to check out hyrax "output" and check the rest of the exhibit for hiding areas, food, bedding, etc. We had just walked up to them when a keeper happened by. We introduced ourselves as keepers who would soon be getting hyrax and asked how they are to work with? "Oh, they're AWFUL!" She then gave us an extensive behind the scenes tour and we met several other keepers who gave pained looks and offered condolences at our "misfortune." I wrote down tons of stuff and got invaluable information. Most of their major problems seemed to be with breeding animals of opposite sexes. We're getting a bachelor group that's been together their whole lives so hopefully we'll get lucky and hyrax will be fun and wonderful and shoot love and rainbows from all their orifices.

In other weekend news, we celebrated Kaylin's birthday at my parents' house Saturday evening. It was sort of a last second idea, thrown together because Ben and Sarah and the kids would be home. It worked out nicely. The kids were thrilled to play with their cousins and even Grandpa and Grandma Kaiser were able to come. Kaylin made and decorated the 4 layer cake. I was in charge of getting the cakes out of the pans and I stink at it. Advice would be welcome! Kaylin got all kinds of cake decorating stuff for presents so I imagine many more cakes in the near future.

My dad got Kaylin a tent and Gene helped set it up on Sunday. The kids were determined to sleep in it Sunday night, but by midnight it had started raining. I woke at 2am to strong thunderstorms, but the kids (and all their stuff) were already inside in their beds. Apparently Kaylin was too short to put the cover on the tent so it was rained on all night and part of Monday. I didn't get home early enough to deal with the wet tent last night. Hopefully tonight I'll be able to towel out the standing water and it can sun dry and not mildew. It's a great tent and both kids love it.

Thanks Georgia O'Keeffe!

2011-06-19T02:30:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago my dad took the kids to the new north library branch. They checked out a bunch of books, including a large coffee table book on the works of Georgia O'Keeffe. Kaylin was very excited about that book and spent a lot of time looking through it. Gene and I had both flipped through it a bit and it seemed excellent. Kaylin was inspired to lay in the yard and paint close-ups of flowers. Gotta love that!

One evening the neighbor kids were over. The boys were playing basketball outside and the girls were looking at the O'Keeffe book. I was laughing to myself that Kaylin was forcing the little girl to appreciate art when I heard the girls giggling and giggling. What on earth? Turns out the book included a few nude photos O'Keeffe's photographer husband took. The photos were beautiful and artistic, not vile and pornographic, but they were still nudes and quite surprising to the little girls. I teased Kaylin a bit that if she continues to take art classes in college she'll most likely draw or paint nudes. I tried to minimize the shock and then we concentrated on another photo of O'Keeffe fully dressed, but with hairy armpits exposed. Ewwwww. I didn't take the book away because the few photos were not sexual or disgusting, they were beautiful representations of the human body. I explained that to the girls, acted like it was no big deal and they went back to looking at flower and cloud paintings.

It suddenly occurred to me that Little Girl's mom would NEVER understand what had just happened. She's excellent at "lipreading" but to get from her young daughter or even from me that the "naked pictures" were in an art book and not porn? I better write her a note explaining what happened! I was searching for pen and paper when I realized that the neighbor lady thinking her kid was looking at porn at our house wasn't such a bad thing. I left it alone and said nothing and wrote nothing. That was several weeks ago and the kids who for years have come over nearly every day and usually beat me into the house when I pull in from work have barely been over and never once in the house. At least not while I'm at home! Bwa ha ha ha ha! If thinking we allow our kids to look at porn or just carelessly leave it about the house is what it takes to give us some peace from those kids, so be it!

Back to the book... The next morning I saw Kaylin trying to cram the O'Keeffe book into her backpack to take to school. Absolutely not! "Why? I want to show my friends her art." Yes, darlin' and then the boys will get wind of the nude photos and they will tear apart the $$$ book, it will be confiscated and I'll have to make a special trip to the office to retrieve it and pay big bucks to the library to replace it. NO WAY that book is going to school! Fortunately, Kaylin saw the sense in that argument. I still made her show me the book every morning before school until we returned it to the library because I KNOW that exact chain of events would have happened, probably along with a suspension.

School's out!

2011-06-12T23:56:00.000-07:00

It was a busy final week of school, a busy weekend and I'm finally getting around to recapping it. I had basically given up all hope that my sinus headache would ever completely go away, but Tuesday, after 8 days of headache, it was just gone. No more neti pot or allergy meds. Easy come, easy go. Thank goodness!

Kaylin had a great first year of middle school. Her attitude was excellent, her drive was amazing, her grades were excellent. I was very disappointed in the school system for wasting the third quarter drilling the kids for state achievement tests, but sadly, when the bulk of the funding is based on test scores, what can they do? Kaylin was completely burned out by the end of the year, but after a rough third quarter she brought her grades back up and finished the year as the top math student and a top student overall. It was an absolutely shocking change from her lazy, disorganized 4th grade year and I'm very proud. I definitely think we made the right decision to keep her out of the gifted school and its huge amount of extra work and allow her to figure out on her own what she's capable of if she gives a little effort.

Logan had a rough start to 2nd grade and was having an especially hard time with reading. His teacher scared me at his first conference with words like intervention. I freaked out for a couple of weeks before realizing my kid just didn't realize reading is important. I sat him down, told him how important reading actually is and in no time he was up to level. Suddenly everything clicked. Rather than spending HOURS memorizing spelling words, spelling just made sense. We'd go over his spelling list ONCE on the way to school Friday morning and other than the occasional tricky word, he easily got them right. Spelling and reading went from completely frustrating and hugely time consuming to nearly effortless. What a relief! Logan got the "Most Improved Reader" award in his class. I couldn't be more proud!

Summer baseball started this week. This is Logan's final year of Coach Pitch and he's loving it. He takes his baseball VERY seriously, is very focused and aware of all the rules. He knows how to cover other players and knows where to throw the ball. One of the other moms came up to us at Saturday's practice and complimented us on Logan's focus. She played softball her whole life and was working with her son to get him focused, etc. How did we do it? Um, HE did it. I seriously doubt you can teach your kid to love rules. Logan loves baseball and practices constantly. If he's not playing, he's watching games and observing what the pros do so he can imitate it. Gene and I just hope that all his practice and love of the game somehow make up for his extreme genetic disadvantage. :)

Kaylin's in her 2nd session of ceramics. This class is her perfect mix of art and mess. She loves it. I sort of hope that next session she goes back to drawing or tries painting because she is allowed to make unlimited stuff. I think two sessions worth of ceramic cups and pitchers and tiles and puzzles and STUFF will be plenty for a while! Or maybe she can get volume out of her system and work on quality over quantity?

Camp Zone starts today and I still have to label all the sun block and hand sanitizer and beach towels and extra outfits and pack the backpacks. Ugh. I also have to fill out the in case of emergency paperwork. I better get on it!

The neti pot

2011-06-03T08:59:00.000-07:00

I have had a sinus headache since Sunday. It was so bad on Tuesday I almost didn't make it through my workday and then called off work on Wednesday and went to the doctor. I didn't have a cold or allergies and wasn't having the copious nasal discharge I've had with the only other sinus infection I've had, but my ears were all stuffed up and my sinuses were so painful it hurt if I lightly brushed my face. My teeth hurt. I was diagnosed with a sinus infection and given antibiotics, prescription nasal spray and told to get allergy medicine and saline nasal wash.

I hit Walgreens for my meds, easily found the allergy stuff and was shocked at the enormous selection of saline nasal washes. There were special bottles, sprays, neti pots... Hmmm, neti pots. I'm always intrigued by the gross. I've watched videos of people using them. Yep, the neti pot is my choice.

I got home and took my first doses of prescription meds and an allergy pill. I figured I'd put off the neti pot because it would probably just flush out the nasal spray that almost instantaneously relieved a huge amount of my sinus pressure. The headache never went away, but the extreme pressure was gone for a few hours. When I felt it building again, I figured it was time. I watched a few "how to" videos on youtube. Dis. Gus. Ting.

I mixed up my saline powder in lukewarm water, inserted the spout into my right nostril, tilted my head, gagged and nearly drowned gulping saline through my nose. Fantastic. I bought the darn thing, I'm giving it another go. This time I tilted my head far enough forward that throat drainage was impossible. I breathed through my mouth. The sensation isn't quite like vomiting, but it is equally unpleasant. But just for a second. Then it is just weird; you are pouring water into one nostril and having it come out the other. Then I repeated the process with the other nostril. Then I blew my nose and spit a bunch of post-nasal saline solution. And just when I thought I'd NEVER do that again, I realized the pressure was gone.

Thanks to the neti pot, I was able to work on Thursday. My headache was still annoyingly bad, but when the sinus pressure built up and I almost asked to go home around 2pm, I used the neti pot and was easily able to finish my day. I used it again before bed and slept all night.

This morning I still have a dull headache. I plan to use the neti pot whenever the pressure builds. I'm gonna take it easy this weekend and try to get rid of the headache, but at least I know I'll be able to accomplish all my usual weekend chores. The neti pot... I guess I'm a fan.

Old

2011-05-26T02:38:00.000-07:00

Sniff, sniff, sob. I guess I'm the last to know, but it turns out that probably my favorite video game of all time- ET for the Atari 2600- is known as one of the worst video games ever. It was so hated that there are rumors that gobs of the unsold cartridges were destroyed and buried in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Well...

My family didn't even have an Atari 2600. I had to play Atari at Doug's house and the summer I was totally addicted to his ET game? He accused me of only being his friend so I could come over and play that game. That wasn't entirely true! I mean, I had to strategically plan my visits to times his younger brother wasn't around so I didn't have to compete for playing time. I think I had Greg's baseball and soccer schedules memorized so I could go search for Reece's Pieces and the parts of the phone so I could "phone home" and call for my ship. I loved that game. Apparently I was one of about ten people in the world who did.

I was hoping to find some remade edition of my beloved game so I could relive that glorious summer of 1983, but I guess it ain't happening. Oh, well. I suppose it would end up being like when I was soooo excited to find a plug into your TV version of Pitfall. How did a game that was totally awesome in the '80s become so incredibly boring in 2004? Twenty minutes of running through disappearing tar pits and hopping over scorpions? No thanks! It was so boring I ended up playing only a couple of times. I can't even remember if you can win or if you're just going for a high score.

I guess I need to accept that I'm old and not a gamer. I bought myself a Nintendo DS several years ago, but the only thing I've ever played on it is Sudoku. Old. My feet are too bad to play any of the interactive Wii games. Old. Instead, I'll cuddle into my recliner with my book and my dog and watch the birds and squirrels at the feeders. Uh, OLD!!!

The Anniversary Post

2011-05-22T02:19:00.000-07:00

Happy Anniversary, Gene-Gene! We celebrated 18 years of marriage by taking an 8 hour tour of the birding hotspots of Central Illinois. Our outing turned out to be WAY longer than we had originally intended, but we saw some cool wildlife and had lots of fun! Our original plan was dinner and a movie. My parents kept the kids most of the day and all night Saturday, but with the predicted rain we didn't plan much. I woke up early Saturday morning, let Duncan outside and realized it hadn't rained at all overnight. Weird, there had been an 80% chance of rain that extended all day. I checked my computer and there was nothing on radar so I decided to go to the migratory bird walk at Forest Park Nature Center at 7:30am.

The hike included a couple in their early 30s, an older single woman, the naturalist and me. All of us were about equal in our bird knowledge; we could all identify all of the usual birds and were hoping for amazing knowledge from the naturalist. He apparently was burned out from all his end of the year school field trips because he spent the first half of our tour pointing out things like female cardinals and robins. Ummmmm... It finally occurred to him that we were a bit more advanced than that and he started identifying birds by song. We stuck mostly to the prairie area and didn't walk very far, but we saw indigo buntings and watched a flycatcher dip and dive catching bugs. It was a little disappointing because the previous day I went for a hike at FPNC by myself and saw a barred owl, indigo buntings, a common yellowthroat, a pair of loud and destructive pileated woodpeckers, turkeys and lots of the usual birds. I thought birding with an experienced pro would be more fun than it actually was. It whet my appetite for more birding.

I got home ~9 and Gene had some minor work to get done so grabbed his computer and headed off to Panera while I got the kids ready for their overnight with my parents and finished some laundry. My dad picked up the kids around 10. It now appeared that it wasn't going to rain at all the entire day! I devised a plan to go to Banner Marsh and then to Emiquon nature preserve and Dickson Mounds museum. I was sort of surprised, but Gene happily went along with the plan. (I wasn't sure he'd want to go to muddy, buggy places just to look for wildlife.) We decided it would be a good day to test Duncan. We've always crated him when we leave, but he's never been terribly destructive to anything other than pencils. We figured we'd be gone about 3 hours- a perfect test time.

We first headed to Banner Marsh. We did three of the four entrances- skipped the tick-filled wetlands trail- and saw zillions of geese with their goslings, lots of mute swans but no cygnets, hundreds of turtles, Gene's first indigo buntings, a green heron and lots of the usual birds. We headed on to Emiquon. I hadn't been in that area since grade school so had no idea what to expect. For some reason, most of the river area of emiquon was blocked off. We could only go to one small parking area with a boat launch. We saw a few herons and egrets and some snapping turtles. Oh well, at least I can say I've been there... We drove on and back to Dickson Mounds. Ooooohhhhhh, the nature preserve continues way back. We didn't see a lot of waterfowl (wrong time of the year) but I did stand on a bridge while hundreds of swallows dove and flew all around me. The Dickson Mounds museum without their uncovered burial mound that was previously the centerpiece of the entire place? It's sadly just not much to see. I think we spent less than 30 minutes there.

It was almost 2pm and we were hungry so we drove on a few miles to Havana and ate gigantic tenderloins at Toni's Family Restaurant. We were now so close to Lake Chautauqua it seemed silly to skip it. It was really windy and the water was choppy so the dozens of turtles weren't sunning themselves. Also, the woods were FILLED with singing birds, but the trees had "leafed out" so much in the past three weeks it was nearly impossible to see them. We moved on to Sand Ridge State Forest, the place I went with Ashley for her skink research. We saw a coyote run across the road and then saw lots of indigo buntings. We pretty much just drove through the park because neither of us wanted to be covered in ticks. We did stop long enough for Gene to see the cacti. We checked out the Jake Wolf Memorial Fish Hatchery, but the building was already closed for the day. On to Spring Lake!

Finally, cygnets! Hurray! There were still around 100 mute swans at Spring Lake but we only saw three cygnets. They were stinkin' cute, though. We parked and hiked back along the lake road, checking out snakes, turtles, several muskrats and lots of birds. We spotted a rose breasted grosbeak and a Baltimore oriole, making the otherwise nearly insufferable gnats worth the hike. Our full list of birds for the day was impressively long. I was pleased with our herp and mammal sitings as well! Holy cow, it's almost 6pm! I wonder what Duncan is doing?!

Our original dinner and a movie plan included a "good" dinner. But now we were sweaty and though not actually filthy, we felt that way. Plus, the late lunch tenderloins made us not want anything remotely greasy. Ice cream was the logical answer. We had Cold Stone Creamery for dinner and then watched a movie On Demand. And Duncan? Left alone for 8 hours instead of 3? Nothing destroyed or damaged, nothing out of place. He was a good dog! It was a fun day. Thanks Mom and Dad for keeping the kids!

Spring

2011-05-15T01:37:00.000-07:00

What a miserable weekend! I don't think it ever stopped raining Saturday. Poor Duncan desperately wanted to chase squirrels but the rain ruined his fun. He's been hilarious lately with the squirrel hunt. Friday was a beautiful day and Duncan spent most of it in the back yard. Every time I would check on him he was standing sentinel, quivering with anticipation waiting for the evil squirrel to show himself. The squirrel would eventually chirp at the dog and then Duncan would TEAR around and around the yard. Sometimes he napped in the warm sun, but he was always ready to take off after that squirrel at a second's notice. I imagine he'll eventually catch one. Then what?

We have baby chipmunks at our bird feeders. They are so cute I can't even be upset when mama chipmunk repeatedly fills her cheeks with seed. It's amazing how baby animals affect people. The zoo has baby groundhogs under the feed storage shed right outside the main kitchen door. Most of the year the groundhogs are annoying pests, but the babies are soooo cute everyone is loving them. One of my coworkers even has a baby groundhog as her facebook profile picture. My favorite babies should be showing themselves soon. I am completely in love with the baby starlings who have grown as big as mom but still don't feed themselves. They fly around expertly, making a huge ruckus begging mom to bring them food. In the winter I can't stand the flocks of starlings who enter my barns for warmth and make huge messes while eating the animal food. The late spring babies make up for the trouble.

The kids are signed up for summer camp and baseball. Gene and I both got our summer vacation time off approved for the first full week of July. Kaylin's band concert is this Tuesday and then we're done with school activities other than end of the year picnics. I know the last few weeks of school will fly by, but both kids have terrible spring fever. I need to get Kaylin signed up for the summer session of ceramics, but otherwise we are ready for this school year to end. Bring it on!

Mother's Day Adventures With the Kids

2011-05-08T01:43:00.000-07:00

Admittedly, I think Mother's Day is a silly, made-up holiday. I like "kid" holidays and buying stuff for kids, but I'm just not a huge fan of giving and receiving gifts. I don't like shopping and I'm not good at choosing thoughtful gifts that are "perfect" for a person. If I do give a gift to an adult, it is usually something I find amusing that suits that person. My hope is that they get a laugh and a bit of enjoyment before properly disposing of the thing. Otherwise, I feel like my adult friends and family can pick out and buy things for themselves they actually want and will use and enjoy. I know I'm in the minority here, but sorry, I have no holiday spirit when it comes to the contrived, gift-oriented holidays.

I did, however, use Mother's Day as an excuse to shirk my housework responsibilities and use my "special holiday weekend" taking the kids on some awesome adventures. Yes, my house is cluttered, but I still live by the phrase "Experiences, not things." I can't help it that the rest of my family disagrees :) The kids had a short day of school on Friday so Kaylin and I picked up Logan at noon and we headed out to Banner Marsh. I had no idea what to expect. The place has four entrances. We skipped the first entrance and went to the main entrance first. It was mostly a boat launching area, but had probably a dozen pairs of Canada geese with their adorable goslings. We also saw a rose-breasted grosbeak almost immediately after turning in. We drove back on another road and saw dozens of turtles. Cool. We then went back on the highway and pulled into the next entrance. It was deserted except for us. We walked back on a grassy trail and found nesting swans, lots of frogs and turtles and more grosbeaks. We were having a great time until I discovered- TICKS! We were all covered with ticks! Ugh! No wonder we were the only ones! We ran back to the parking area and brushed off the ticks. I don't think any of us were bitten, but I did find a couple in my hair later on the drive home. Yuck. That almost ruined the experience for my hysterical daughter, but the next entrance made up for it. Huge lakes filled with dozens of nesting swans, geese with goslings and all kinds of ducks and coots. Terns were dipping and diving and (my first) soras darting in and out of the reeds. It was a cool place! We drove back to an area with a suspension bridge overlooking dozens of sunning turtles. That bridge completely made up for the horrors of the ticks. The kids bounced across that thing a hundred times while I looked for snakes along the shore. We inadvertently saved the best for last when we turned into the entrance we originally passed. We drove way back on flooded roads that just barely accommodated my car to a boat launch area. The drive back was filled with sandpipers and several more sora. The parking lot was flooded and the kids waded in knee-deep water while I watched swallows and woodpeckers and more geese with their goslings. We headed home filthy and happy and a little freaked out about the ticks. I went over the kids' bodies and through their hair about 10 times apiece. I just took a quick break to go through my hair again. Shudder!

The Banner Marsh experience made me want a fishing license. I haven't had one in at least 15 years. Friday night after we cleaned up and went to Burger Barge with my parents and Andy (yum!) we headed to Wal-Mart and got fishing licenses, fishing poles and some worms. Logan woke me bright and early Saturday morning to go fishing. Kaylin woke up as we were headed out and wanted to join. The three of us headed for the river. I hadn't realized how flooded the river actually was! The spot we planned to go (Galena Marina) was so flooded the woods and most of the parking lot were covered with water. At the worst flooding point, the water went all the way to the RC track. We would have been fishing in a few inches of water that is normally parking lot. We tried a couple other places along the river before deciding to just go to the lagoon at Glen Oak Park. The lagoon either hasn't been stocked yet or it was just a bad fishing morning because the kids have bragged of catching 30+ small fish apiece at day camp. In an hour of fishing, I caught one teensy baby catfish and the kids caught nothing. It was time to take Kaylin to her ceramics class, so we dropped her off and came home long enough for me to do some laundry and Logan to play some baseball with the neighbor kids. Gene opted out of our adventure because he really wanted to do some yardwork.

Logan and I grabbed some food, picked up Kaylin and headed out to Wildlife Prairie State Park for their Migratory Bird Day. The "festival" wasn't quite what I had expected- a couple of crafts and a table with a guy who was THRILLED to show and tell about his lifelong butterfly collection. (Seriously impressive. I think we talked to him for at least 15 minutes.) Otherwise, it was no different from any day at the park. We walked the animal trails and I was happy to see the badgers moving around and the otter out of her house. The cougars were being very vocal, so that was fun. Otherwise, it's sad to see so many huge, vacant exhibits. It's tough to be a zoo person and see an animal park you grew up with deteriorate so much. The grounds are beautiful and awesome! I hope somebody can step in and save the place. We had planned to fish at the park, but the map was confusing and it appeared we'd have to park and carry all of our stuff quite a distance to fish. We decided to go to Spring Lake instead.

It was a much longer drive than I thought, but I'm glad we went. There was a big flock of at least 80 swans on the lake, plus all the nesting swans. We also saw a bunch of water snakes, turtles and a muskrat. Logan was extremely bothered by the gnats, but we each caught one fish, so that was enough excitement to make up for the drive and the bugs. As we were driving home, we were talking about stopping somewhere to pick up some food, but we were too filthy and fishy and wormy to actually eat inside a restaurant... Gene called and wondered if the kids wanted to go to the Chiefs game? Both excitedly answered "Yes!" That ended the restaurant talk. We had to boogie home so they could get to the game. I was happy to skip it and spend some quiet time at home by myself before falling exhausted into bed at 8:30pm. I don't know how the kids managed that game on top of our day. I was whipped!

Today I'll spend real Mother's Day at work. I think I'm working the sea lion string. That should be interesting since I haven't done it in a looooong time. The kids are going to try to convince Gene to take them fishing again. Off topic, but I lost not only another full suet cake in one night, but something also made off with an entire sock feeder freshly filled with seed! I am so curious what kind of critter I'm dealing with! The sock weighed more than a squirrel, so I'm pretty sure that unless it was a group of squirrels working together... I searched the yard and couldn't find the empty sock, so ????

May

2011-05-03T01:55:00.000-07:00

Wow! Time is flying by and a lot is happening and there is no time to write. I sort of love/hate the end of the school year. There are so many activities and extra things to do. On top of that, this is busy season for weddings and other parties at the zoo so I have to work late often. This week and next I have work or school obligations almost every night. Lots of exciting, fun stuff, but I won't lie, I really just want to come home from work, shower and rest my aching feet!

I have so much to write about I'll start with the weird... Friday afternoon I was filling bird feeders and noticed my suet feeder was low. It had been several weeks or even a month since I had put that suet cake out. I put in a brand new suet cake. Saturday morning I left home at 6am and didn't pay much attention to the bird feeders. When I returned home at 6pm, the entire suet cake was gone! At first I thought the kids must have messed with it and looked in the bushes, but the wire caging was covered in suet as if it had actually been pulled out of the cage. What on earth eats an entire suet cake in one day?! I'm guessing somewhere there is a very sick cat or raccoon or something because my birds didn't do that! Yuck!

Both kids have terrible spring fever and can't wait for school to end. This year it goes until June 10th and I don't know how they are going to make it. Fortunately, Logan's teacher seems to be easing up on the homework a bit because the ONLY thing he wants to do is go outside and hit baseballs. Even in the rain! Logan has proclaimed that video games are for winter and the rest of the year is for playing sports outside. Hurray! I hope he somehow keeps that attitude. Kaylin is going nuts wanting school to end. She is like me (and probably the majority of the population) in that she loves to read, but hates to read anything she's forced to read. She was driving herself insane trying to get through The Diary of Anne Frank. She liked the book, but couldn't handle the forced reading of so many pages per night. She was whining about it so much and reading it so little I finally told her to just skim it enough to pass the test. She did and she did. Ugh. It's going to be a long month.

Friday night Kaylin's friend Zoe was in the school play. Kaylin begged me to take her and I caved. I usually hate stuff like that. School plays are an obligation, not something I want to attend. A school play my kid isn't even in? No thanks! ESPECIALLY if it's a musical! Well, this time I was wrong. This was nothing like Kaylin's drama club last year where they did a musical but 3/4 of the kids couldn't sing. The kids in this play actually tried out to get their parts and they were good. This director likely didn't spend 3/4 of her time disciplining rowdy boys. The play was funny and good. I didn't want to rip my hair out waiting for it to end. And more importantly, Zoe was THRILLED Kaylin came and they hugged and hugged and were so happy to see each other. Next year I'll have to figure out a way for Kaylin to be in the play. My work schedule is rigid, but maybe Gene can arrange his schedule so he can pick her up from practices. She would love it.

Saturday I spent the day with my former coworker Ashley. She's doing a research project on skinks at Sand Ridge State Forest near Manito. Sand Ridge is an interesting place because it's very sandy soil and the prairie areas are covered in cacti. The unusual conditions bring animals normally found in southern Illinois to central Illinois. This weird little pocket is home to skinks and pocket gophers found nowhere else in central Illinois. It's also home to zillions of ticks I still imagine crawling all over my body. Every time I think of the ticks I check my hair again. Yuck.

Anyway, Ashley has 6 different areas she monitors for skinks. She checks these areas 4 times a day (7, 11, 4 and 9) every Saturday. She has twelve sets of three boards set up in each of the 6 areas and samples 3 sets in each area at each check. The hours in between checks she spends exploring surrounding areas, looking for wildlife. I stayed for the first three skink checks and between checks we went to Spring Lake and Lake Chautauqua looking for birds and snakes. At Spring Lake we saw at least a dozen water snakes, a muskrat, nesting swans and lots of ducks and geese and coots. Ashley went all Crocodile Hunter and jumped into the lake to catch a snake that bit her boot repeatedly before pooping all over her arm and biting itself. I was too busy watching another snake trying to eat a huge fish and will always regret my failure to get this capture on video because it was hilarious. Oh well. At the 11 o'clock check we found two skinks and I got to hold one while Ashley measured it and marked it. The other was too fast and escaped before she could grab it. Following that check, we went to Lake Chautauqua to go birding. This is somewhere I've been wanting to go for a long time and I have to admit I was disappointed. The place isn't just big it is vast. There could be hundreds of ducks and they'd be so far away they'd just look like black specks even using binoculars. I guess I was expecting something much more intimate, just crawling with birds. We did see a lot of Baltimore orioles (my first of the year), one pelican and lots of wood ducks, mallards, red-winged blackbirds and house sparrows (whoop) but the concentration of birds I was expecting wasn't there because they had miles and miles of river to spread out. Oh well. It was still a really cool place and we saw dozens of turtles. By 4 it was windy and cloudy. No sun and cool temps usually mean no skinks. It was a fun day but I was exhausted when I got home. I don't know how Ashley stays until 10pm AND does this marathon once a week! (Oh- her fiance came as I was leaving so I didn't leave her in the woods by herself...)

This weekend I think I'll try to hit Banner Marsh. My new goal is to see river otters in the wild and I'm never going to accomplish that goal if I don't get out there!

Computer death

2011-04-25T02:37:00.000-07:00

Tragedy and horror, my laptop died last week. I thought it had a virus so Gene took it to be fixed, but alas, my hard drive failed. Fortunately, my "tragedy" was loss of time with my computer, not loss of information. I had my photo and music files backed up. I'm sure some things will eventually occur to me as lost, but the only thing I can think of at the moment is my resume, and by the time I need it again I probably will need to rewrite it anyway. I have a new bottom of the line laptop! Yay! It's much faster than my old bottom of the line laptop. It will suit my needs perfectly.

I got busy and preoccupied and stopped feeding birds for several years. When we were at Palo Duro Canyon, they had a blind set up near some feeders with colorful identification cards. I was surprised at how much Logan enjoyed identifying the birds. He stayed with me at the blind for a long time rather than running around hunting lizards with Kaylin. As soon as we got home I bought some new feeders. It's only been a couple of weeks, but we've enjoyed the front yard feeders so much I expanded and put up more feeders in the back yard. The entire family is enjoying the birds. Tiger sits by the window for hours, hunting and clicking at the birds. Duncan prefers the chipmunks and squirrels the birdseed attracts. Logan loves the goldfinches and we get a lot. Every so often I'll hear "OOOOOOOOOOO" look up, and the feeder has two or three bright yellow finches. Kaylin likes the chickadees and titmice. My favorites are the woodpeckers. So far we've had downy, red bellied, flickers and yellow bellied sapsuckers. I hope we somehow attract pileated. I've only seen one pileated woodpecker in Peoria and it was in my yard. So maybe...

We have a LOT of squirrels and they were cleaning out my main feeder daily. My problem is that I like the squirrels almost as much as the birds, so I didn't have the heart to chase them off. (But I did always think CH CH CH and laugh. Yes Mom, I'm laughing at you :) I read that safflower seed is a natural squirrel deterrent. I've had it in the main feeder several days and the usual birds come for it and the squirrels don't touch it. I put corn and sunflower seeds on the ground for them so their fat butts don't starve.

Some crazy woman at obedience really ticked me off and I'm torn about whether to go back or not. There is a main person who runs the class and then several helpers. I think the helpers are unpaid volunteers, but that's just a guess. Anyway, this one lady has taken a particular dislike to Duncan. Last week, she took him from me and was trying to force him over and over to lay down. He kept refusing and she was getting really nasty about it. She was saying nasty things about him to both me and other people in the class. I have talked to the main teacher multiple times about how I'm bringing Duncan to this class to get him used to other dogs and help with his terrible distraction issues. The more I work with him, the less likely he is to sit or down and stay. When he's distracted by dogs/smells/people he is NEVER going to behave. He is most definitely NOT a Lab who lives to please his owner! She agreed that the class is great for him and that I can participate in this fashion. She has been very encouraging. The other woman cannot accept Duncan's behavior. She's the one who proudly showed me up by "training" Duncan to down when he desperately wanted a treat she was holding. Last week, she wouldn't give him back. The main trainer kept yelling at her to give me my dog back but she wouldn't. Finally, the main trainer went over and physically removed Duncan's leash from her hand and brought him back to me. I bet she wasted 20 of 60 minutes of my class! Forget that! Oh, and then she walked around next to me telling me how awful Duncan is. Especially forget that! Seriously! I'm surrounded by purebred Labs, shepherds and border collies the owners have had since they were puppies. I have a crazy young adult terrier mix adopted from the shelter. I know nothing about his background or where he was most of the first year of his life. I'M willing to give him some time to come around! She can keep her perfect show dog. I want Duncan!

Rawr

2011-04-15T01:41:00.000-07:00

It was a rough week back to work and school for all of us. I was so worn out from the trip it was exhausting to make it through 5 work days. Alas, we all survived. Duncan did SO much better at obedience class on Tuesday! The first class I had to hold him ~80% of the time because that was the only way I could get him to stop barking. He's gotten better each time, but Tuesday he only started barking during the final exercise when the dogs were running off leash to their owners. He was much more focused on me and doing what he should be doing. Duncan hates to lie down on command under the calmest circumstances at home, so at class he usually refuses to down. One of the assistants came around with some treats and worked with Duncan for a minute to get him to down. He's not usually very food driven, but he wanted what she had and after about five times asking went into a perfect down. She gave me a superior, victorious look as though she had just effortlessly trained my dog and said "See?" Yes, I see that you're NUTS if you actually think you just trained my dog to down by using a word and hand signal. Sweetie, he doesn't understand English or sign language. Duncan knows down perfectly well, he just usually chooses not to do it. Anyway, he is still one of the worst in the class, but is no longer completely focused on the other dogs. I went to "The Last Lions" movie with some work friends on Wednesday night. I thought it was going to be a documentary on how wild lions are quickly disappearing in Africa. It sort of was, but the creators edited their amazing, beautiful footage into an absurd drama. Instead of focusing on the fact that lion numbers have dropped from 450,000 to 20,000 in a 50 year period and why this happened and what we can do about it, they turned one lions's struggle into a ridiculous story of revenge and more revenge. Mama lion has been widowed when a large group of lions is forced into her territory. She must take her 3 cubs and go into hiding on an island where she learns to overcome her fear of water to successfully hunt water buffalo. One cub is lost to a crocodile. The two remaining cubs are thought to be killed by the buffalo herd. Mama flips out and seeks revenge on the head buffalo. She fails by herself but then somehow defeats and becomes leader of the group of female lions that invaded her original territory. They work together to take out that evil buffalo leader. Then miracle of miracles! The runty male cub just happens to be walking around safe among the rest of the buffalo herd! Such a happy ending. Except they already stated that if the female joined the new group of lions, the males would instinctively kill her cubs. Um... As I said before, the film was beautiful, I just wish they hadn't turned a gorgeous wild animal into an evil human.

Now known as The Brats

2011-04-09T16:09:00.000-07:00

I really love being with my kids on vacation. I love the fact that they play together and mostly get along. I love that they go along with Gene and/or me to play little jokes on each other. I love that they enjoy watching birds and climbing on and collecting rocks and searching for lizards. I love that they appreciate the beauty of mountains and canyons and get excited over tumbleweeds and cactuses. I love that they get that a road trip allows them to see things they'd never see if we took a plane to our destination. I love that their favorite state is Oklahoma. Then we come home and the neighbor kids come over and my kids turn into different people. The neighbor girl is only 7, but she has turned into a nasty little brat. She's a gum chomping, hair twirling mean girl and I can't stand her. She is terribly jealous of everything Kaylin does and is constantly throwing fits and going home if she doesn't get her way. Middle boy is a disrespectful little brat. He constantly talks down to me and talks back. This afternoon Kaylin and I were in the car, getting ready to pull out to take Duncan down to the river. Middle Boy came and stopped me and demanded I go find his little brother's stuffed monkey toy. I told him I didn't know where it was and he basically accused me of stealing it. I started the car and pulled out of the driveway. Seriously? WHY would any adult want a toy monkey? I really dislike these kids! Youngest Boy hasn't been bothering me too much lately because he's so afraid of Duncan he hasn't been coming inside. When the neighbor brats are over, my kids get disrespectful to Gene and me and fight with each other. It's totally boys against girls. On the rare occasion they do all play together, Brat Girl finds some tiny thing that isn't going her way and throws a fit and quits the game. Ugh. That is one bad thing about warmer weather- the Brats are over all the time! -- Logan's final flag football game was this morning. His team never won a game. I'm pretty sure they were scoreless for their first 4 games. Logan scored the only touchdowns for his team both last week and today. It was cool to see him all cocky and proud of himself. Watching him high five the coach and his teammates was priceless. He's embarrassed by all the attention, but at the same time loving it :) I hope he'll play "real" football in the fall. I think he'll really like it. Gene took Logan to the Chiefs home opener this afternoon so Kaylin and I took Duncan down to the river. I let him off leash for the first time and he did really well coming when called and not wandering off, but he rolled around in every dead fish he found. Some were bigger than him. He found a catfish that rivaled the gigantic ones at aquariums! I rinsed him off with the water spigot at the boat ramp and then gave him a real bath at home. One great thing about having a little dog is that I can bathe him in the kitchen sink. Nice and easy on the back! I go back to work tomorrow. I'm caught up on laundry and housework, but I could use one more day to recover from our trip. I am still exhausted. I'm glad the kids have an extra day before they go back to school.

Home!

2011-04-08T06:17:00.000-07:00

We left Amarillo, Texas at 9am and drove three hours to Red Rock Canyon in Oklahoma. We picked up sandwiches on the way and had a picnic lunch. The kids climbed and ran around for two hours. They don't care much about ever going back to Texas or New Mexico, but they want to go back to Oklahoma and back to this canyon. Logan has proclaimed that Oklahoma is his new favorite state, even above Nebraska! We stopped at a Wal-Mart along the highway and got him an Oklahoma bicycle license plate with his name on it. I drove for several hours and we stopped for dinner at a Cracker Barrel in Joplin, Mo. It was 7:30pm as we were leaving and Gene and I were discussing how much farther we'd drive. Gene thought maybe another hour to Springfield. I was suddenly overtaken by desire to Just. Go. Home. and I told him if he could drive until 10:30 while I slept 3 hours, I'd drive the rest of the way home. I couldn't stand the thought of sleeping in yet another hotel bed and REALLY couldn't stand the thought of yet another day of driving! The only thing we had potentially planned was to stop at City Museum in St. Louis. However, we would have been limited for time there because we needed to be home before 6pm to pick up the pets. The kids were all for pushing through and heading home. We made it! I slept my few hours and then had no problem with the remaining 4 hours. Well, that's not completely true. I made Gene talk to me between Morton and home because I got really sleepy. It was a good trip and we got to see some really cool places and really cool things. However, I don't think we'll ever do this long of a drive in such a short time again. The kids did great, but it was just too much! We didn't have one day we didn't spend hours and hours in the car. The kids have a new love for canyons and want to go to the Grand Canyon next. They also want to see a "real" desert with huge cacti. Wait- Kaylin hates the word cacti. They want to see huge cactuses. I told them we'll start planning next year's spring break and we will FLY to either Phoenix or Las Vegas, rent a car and drive a much shorter distance to the Grand Canyon. They both were upset with the thought of flying because "Think of everything we'll miss." Wow. This was in the car yesterday while we were in the middle of our 14 hours of driving time from Amarillo to Peoria! I'm going to take a shower and go pick up Duncan and Tiger! Yay! We've all missed them so much! I called the vet's office yesterday morning to confirm we'd be picking them up today. I'd never talked to the girl who answered the phone before (not somebody I worked with) and she said "Oh, Tiger! That big, fat cat? He's so nice!" As expected, Tiger has been getting loved on by the staff. At least Duncan will probably be very happy to see me!

Tumbleweed

2011-04-07T04:07:00.000-07:00

We spent most of yesterday driving from Santa Fe to the Palo Duro Canyon near Amarillo. This was the place we skipped on the way to Santa Fe because it was so cold and windy on Monday. Yesterday was in the upper 80s and breezy. We were all so sick of driving we almost skipped the "Grand Canyon of Texas." I'm very glad we went! It was really cool! The kids loved it. We were able to do a long drive around part of the inner canyon and made many stops to climb rocks, hunt lizards and watch birds. There was a great birding area with feeders and a fountain with a blind for the humans. I saw grosbeaks, towhees, finches, sparrows, thrashers, doves, woodpeckers, cardinals, turkeys and many others. The kids carried their nets and tried to catch lizards, but the lizards were way too fast and had great cover amongst the cactus and prickly bushes. Gene's always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon and he really enjoyed Palo Duro. We were so close to the Buffalo Lake wildlife refuge I couldn't stand not going back to the prairie dog town to try to see burrowing owls. We arrived just before dusk. It should have been a good time to see the owls, but either I'm a terrible spotter or just unlucky. I found burrows surrounded by tiny bones and owl pellets so I KNOW they were there, but I didn't see any owls. It probably didn't help my cause that the kids were running around screaming and having tumbleweed races. Speaking of tumbleweeds, both kids are fascinated with them. Apparently on SpongeBob when nothing is happening a tumbleweed blows past. Both thought it was hilarious when a tumbleweed would blow in front of our car and we'd smash it going 80 mph. We hit one particularly big one that will likely be one of the highlights of the kids' trip. They won't remember the beauty of the mountains or all the cool birds we saw, but they'll remember smashing that big tumbleweed :) Back to the tumbleweed races... Kaylin and Logan each found a large tumbleweed at the prairie dog area. They decided to race them down the grassy path. Kaylin's was bigger and it was winning so Logan decided to kick his to move it along. Mistake. He kicked it as hard as he could and got terrible scratches all over his leg. He was screaming and even crying a little. It was such a stupid injury the rest of us couldn't help laughing. He tried to blame it on me by saying I should have dressed him in jeans for the day. Uh, yeah. Ok, sweet little muffin, I'll "dress" you from now on. How about "Don't kick tumbleweeds." Doofus. We spent the night in Amarillo and still have 14 hours of driving ahead. Ugh. I doubt we'll do it all today. We have to get close enough to home that we can pick up Duncan and Tiger before 6pm Friday. That's our only time restriction.

Santa Fe and Taos

2011-04-06T03:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my day. I didn't see any burrowing owls or roadrunners, but I finally got to do some birding and a whole lot of prairie dog watching. We started our day at the Randall Davey Audubon Center. We followed the MapQuest directions precisely and almost destroyed the van driving up some horrible, unpaved hill with huge ruts. Thanks, MapQuest! That's the third time you've done me wrong this trip! We then used common sense and signage and made it to the place that reminded me a lot of Forest Park Nature Center in Peoria- except in the mountains. We took a long, beautiful hike before spending a lot of time in the area with feeders. We saw all the usual common birds (robins, etc.) plus ladder backed woodpeckers, pinyon jays, gray jays, Cassin's finch, mountain chickadees and several birds I still have in my brain but haven't yet identified. I will never identify all of the warblers and sparrows because there's no way I'll remember the correct markings. Logan got a little bored, but Kaylin loved it. We moved on to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. (By the way, I AM writing in paragraphs and my past couple of entries have been all lumped together; apparently by some glitch in Blogger.) It was a smallish place with a lot of her paintings, with some drawings and sculpture thrown in. I was hoping her work would really appeal to Kaylin and it did. Kaylin especially liked the flowers, mountain landscapes and clouds seen from airplanes. She wasn't crazy about the animal bones- did not see the beauty in the bones that O'Keeffe did :) When we entered, they lent each of the kids a book about O'Keeffe's childhood and how she became a painter. It was fantastically illustrated with reproductions of paintings we were actually seeing for real right in front of us. I think Kaylin enjoyed reading about how O'Keeffe did everything her own way and never followed the trends her sisters did or did anything the "accepted" way. Obviously, I enjoyed that as well, along with O'Keeffe being an introvert's introvert and preferring to do everything by herself. Anyway, the book was a great addition to the overall experience and I think all the adults going to the museum without children should request it! The museum also contained old photographs of O'Keeffe working in the field, including some of her painting inside her Model A Ford. Some of the photographs were taken by Ansel Adams. It was a really cool place. Logan was bored to death, but we couldn't have been there longer than 30-40 minutes. It just wasn't that big! We then left town and took the "high road" to Taos. It was a beautiful drive, winding through mountains, with beautiful views. This route also took us through tiny towns with crumbling houses and shacks it was unbelievable anyone could live in. We found an area with some leftover snow and stopped so the kids could play. It was probably around 70F so the snow was a novelty. Gene and Logan played catch while Kaylin and I looked for birds at a lookout area. It was a long and eventually boring drive, but we finally made it to Taos. I called Taos the "old people's Gatlinburg" because the main focus of this tiny town was the plaza of shops. The shops were more artsy and higher class than the strip in Gatlinburg, but the whole town was a tourist trap for sure. We went to an amazing toy store called Twirl. It rivals Gingerbread House in Bloomington for the best toy store I've been to. We walked around the other shops for a bit and then drove out and looked at the Taos pueblos. We didn't go walk around because it was getting late, but it's amazing to me that people still live there without electricity and running water. On our way back from the pueblos I noticed a prairie dog town. We stopped and watched for a while. Meanwhile, a dozen or more magpies flew around us. I don't care how common these guys are, they are beautiful and impressive! They made my day! We drove on into town and I noticed the cemetary was overtaken by prairie dogs. We stopped again and checked that out. Ewww. I can only imagine what they dig up! We took the "low road" back to Santa Fe. It is supposedly the cop-out drive for people who are in a hurry, but we all LOVED it and preferred it to the high road! It was a gorgeous drive alongside the Rio Grande with towering mountains and mesas all around. It was my favorite scenic drive of the trip. We plan to head out of town this morning. I wish we had more time because I'd definitely like to go back to the Audubon center and spend a full day driving around to the parks in town and checking out the prairie dog towns. I actually plan to do that this morning as soon as it gets light outside. Maybe I will get lucky and find a burrowing owl. A girl can dream :) I have completely fallen in love with the ravens here and get excited no matter how many I see. The ravens were my favorite thing about New Mexico and I will miss them! I hope to do one last thing this morning and that is to go to the Jackalope store just up the street from our hotel. It looks amazing. If it opens at 9 we'll go. I have conflicting websites that say both 9 and 10. Ten is too late. Ah, homeward bound! The kids have been great so far, but they were starting to get testy yesterday and I'm afraid the scenery is going to stop making up for the boredom of this long, long drive. I have a feeling the "Stop looking at me!" is going to set in today. Fantastic.

New Mexico

2011-04-05T03:56:00.000-07:00

I vaguely remember reading that the two oldest cities in the United States are Santa Fe, New Mexico and St. Augustine, Florida. How weird that I just happened to visit both of them in the same few weeks' time! We arrived in Santa Fe late Monday afternoon. It was just late enough we couldn't do any of the museums or attractions, so we found a squarish fake adobe Comfort Suites (with an indoor pool!), shopped at a squarish fake adobe Wal-Mart and ate at a squarish fake adobe Olive Garden. We're staying on a main drag with dozens of hotels and chain restaurants and stores. All are squarish and fake adobe. It's unsettling and somewhat annoying. I guess I vote "dislike" for forced identical architecture. Lame. Also lame are Gene and me who never take our kids anywhere nice to eat. The kids loudly and exuberantly agreed that Olive Garden was the fanciest, nicest restaurant they've ever been to and then loudly questioned how expensive it it? At least all of the staff and other customers we passed on our way out got a good laugh at our expense. Laughter is good for the soul. I'll backtrack and start at the beginning of our vacation. We left Peoria at 11:30 Saturday morning following Logan's flag football game and Kaylin's ceramics class. Logan ran the ball in for his team's only touchdown, so despite the fact the Ravens lost, he was very excited and happy. Before ceramics, Kaylin helped me take Tiger and Duncan to the vet to be boarded and she was very excited that Fatty McFatcat Tiger weighed more than Duncan. I'm hoping Tiger will lose some weight while being boarded this week, but he probably won't be at all stressed and will love getting attention from complete strangers and will sucker the staff into giving him treats until he's so fat and huge they have to put him in a dog kennel because he won't fit in the cat area. We drove about 4 hours to Meramec Caverns. Gene apparently is fascinated by caves- but only by tourist trap caves with comfortable walking areas and a tour guide. He doesn't want to spelunk (can I use that as a verb?) unknown caves in which he might have to squeeze through an opening or get wet. Anyway, I thought Ruby Falls was a cheesy tour, but it has nothing on Meramec! The grand finale where you sit on bleacher benches and watch a light show set to old crackly recordings of the Missouri Waltz and Kate Smith singing God Bless America, all the while listening to the click, click, click of the tour guide turning off and on the lights to the music and then the super grand finale of the American flag on the wall? I couldn't stop giggling. Gene was annoyed because "For less than 100 bucks they could get something that would automatically synchonize the lights to the music. It would be simple to install. I could build it!" We drove on to Springfield where we stopped to eat and decided to stop for the night because the kids REALLY wanted to swim. I wasn't sure if hotels in Texas and New Mexico would have indoor pools, so I figured this may be their only chance to swim and if we drove on it would be too late. It turns out ALL the hotels down here have indoor pools, but they were very happy. We spent most of Sunday driving through Oklahoma. I was expecting the flat nothingness of Kansas and Nebraska, but was pleasantly surprised. We stopped at Red Rock Canyon State Park and the kids climbed the canyon walls and looked at cacti while I searched for birds and lizards. I saw a summer tanager and a few warblers as well as a couple of good-sized lizards. It was a fun stop. We then drove on to Canyon, Texas and spent the night. The plan was to go to Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge and then to Palo Duro Canyon. Well, the temperature on Sunday was in the upper 80s. Monday morning was 25F, SNOWING and extremely windy. We went to the wildlife refuge, but it was so windy we only saw a few hawks and vultures. We hiked up to the prairie dog town where I saw two flashes of prairie dog and no burrowing owls. It was so windy it was just miserable. We figured if we drove to the canyon it would only be to look at it and leave. There was no way we were getting out of our car! We decided to skip it and drive on to Santa Fe. We all loved the mesas and buttes coming into New Mexico. The scenery was wonderful, but driving is getting old! I wish we could stay for a week because I'm NOT looking forward to the drive home. This is a great driving trip, we just need more time to break up the driving time. Oh well.

Road Trip Take 2

2011-03-30T02:34:00.000-07:00

Wooohoooooooo! In three days we're road tripping to Santa Fe! I can't believe how excited I am about this trip, but even more surprisingly, how excited the kids are! This is a new kind of trip for us. We have a destination, but really no solid plans once we get there. Along the way we're stopping at Palo Duro canyon near Amarillo, Texas. I also hope to go to a nature preserve ~30 miles from the canyon, but the Mapquest directions are so vague I'm not sure we'll ever get there. (Drive NW for 5.7 miles. Turn left and drive 0.4 miles. NO street names or route numbers!) We don't have GPS and I was thinking of buying a system before we leave. Then I was asking my boss and a coworker how they like theirs and at the same time they were raving about it, they were complaining about how many times it did them wrong. Then my boss made my decision final by telling the story of some woman who blindly followed her GPS into the desert and died because the instructions were wrong. Um... Nevermind. As for Santa Fe, we have little actually planned. My other boss suggested the Georgia O'Keeffe museum. I checked their website and think Kaylin will love it and Logan will hate it. I'm hoping it's in an area Gene and Logan can do something else fun because after reading up on O'Keeffe I really want to go! I also now want to go to Taos, but I'm not sure our trip will be long enough. The kids want to stop at City Museum in St. Louis. I'm trying to convince them we'll take an overnight St. Louis trip soon and go then. Gene wants to go to Merramec Caverns or another cave. I just want to see lots of cool birds. And reptiles and mammals. I got the kids some sturdy butterfly nets I hope they can use to catch small lizards (but just to look at closer for a few seconds- not to keep or harm in any way.) I have extra binoculars. We're taking along balls and kites and roller skates. Gene is hooking up the Wii in the van so Logan will be set. Kaylin usually draws for hours on end. Both kids love the drive. Both very much want to see deserts and mountains and canyons. Score! I'm usually such a trip planner, I can't believe I have such a vague itinerary. I also can't believe I have NO ZOOS in the plan I do have. We may possibly stop at Tulsa or Oklahoma City Zoo, but only if there's nothing more interesting to do. The kids have both separately asked me what zoos we're going to? Both are SHOCKED when I say probably none. Gene wants to do some of the silly Route 66 attractions on the way home and I'm all for that. My last few trips have been all about zoos and aquariums. I did 4 in 4 days in July, 2 in 2 days and then 3 in 3 days in August, and then Meghan and I just did 5 in 5 days. That doesn't even count all the single zoos I've visited over the past 12 months. Ha! This trip is just about wild animals instead of zoo animals. It's all about the animals :) If my trip goes perfectly, I'll see a roadrunner, a burrowing owl and a painted bunting (might be too early for the bunting.) Oh, and a raven, but I'm fairly confident of that one because the birding area I'm visiting near Santa Fe has ravens instead of crows. Shouldn't be hard to find!

I hate ISAT

2011-03-26T02:39:00.000-07:00

Middle school parent-teacher conferences... What can I say? I guess I'm just really glad I have my iPod Touch (I refuse to get a smart phone because I think I'd waste ALL of my time) and my new Audubon bird guide app. Lets just say that while waiting in three lines to see teachers, I looked up the ranges of a LOT of birds I may potentially see on our upcoming road trip. With middle school conferences you line up at the teachers' rooms and wait your turn. I just happened to be behind Mom of Special Needs Kid and Extremely Concerned Dad. I'm pretty sure I waited 40 minutes to spend 2 minutes with the science teacher. I REALLY wanted to talk to the science teacher because Kaylin's grade slipped and I needed to know why.

Miss Kaylin has been having an extremely hard time with school since the new year. She has possibly the worst case of spring fever EVER. Since returning from winter break, the teachers have all been focused on preparation for ISAT. I just realized I have no idea what that actually stands for, but I of course mean the state achivement tests that are now the most important thing about public school and the main focus of every teacher. ISAT preparation sucks. Rather than doing ANYTHING fun or educational, they drill, drill, drill. I'm not sure what a "written response" even is, but they practice them daily. They replaced art class with more writing time. ISAT preparation is boring and stupid and Kaylin needs much more from her educational experience. Her reading, science, social studies and effort grades all dropped. The three teachers I talked to insisted that Kaylin understands everything, her lower grades are the result of disorganization and not turning in homework assignments. Kaylin's test scores are great.

Yeah, public schools, your system is broken! TRAINING kids to do well on tests rather than teaching them new information? Boring drills that make them hate school? My kid went from fired up for learning to bored and lethargic and uninterested. My child's excellent test scores will nicely contribute to your school's overall ranking. Too bad you have to destroy my kid's love of learning to get what you want! Too bad it would be counterproductive to tell her to not read any of the questions, but to fill in the answer sheet circles in patterns of fairies or turtles. That would be a better learning experience than taking the actual tests!

Kaylin's grades are still excellent but her drive is gone. Her conscious effort to be more organized is gone. Her strong desire to obtain straight As is gone. The testing is over for the year. Right now science is disecting owl pellets. Kaylin's crazy-excited about finding over 50 bones in her pellet. She's also excited about a group social studies presentation with her friend LaShai. She has to dress up like Ben Franklin. I'm hoping these special projects will excite her enough to propel her to the end of the school year. THIS STUFF is what 5th grade should be about! It just makes me sick that an entire quarter of her school year was wasted on test preparation! I've said it before and I can't believe I'm saying it again- I wish I had what it takes to homeschool!

Conference Time

2011-03-25T01:28:00.000-07:00

Parent-teacher conferences always fill me with dread. The kindergarten teacher who fondled my thigh. The second grade teacher who dramatically recalled Kaylin jumping in a puddle at the first conference and coloring her entire desk top with pencil at the second conference. The first conference with Logan's teacher this year where she scared me half to death about his reading issues...

The fall conference with Logan's teacher was the first time I had to deal with a real learning issue. Everything negative I'd heard before was a behavioral issue or a personality conflict- stuff that was cringeworthy for various reasons, but nothing that sent me into a panic. The reading thing pulled the rug out from under me. This teacher struck me as overly strict, but not crazy. When she told me my son was on the brink of failure that was going to RUIN HIS ENTIRE LIFE, I believed her. Heh. Live and learn, I guess.

I went into a panic for a couple of weeks before realizing Logan just needed to be TOLD that reading was important. Once he understood that, he was like "Oh, ok, I'll do it." Last night's conference lasted maybe 5 minutes. His teacher showed me his most recent reading testing. I don't remember how the actual scoring worked, but his score was 108. She said the expected score for 2nd graders by the end of the year is 90. PFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!! So with a quarter of the school year left, he is well above where he needs to be. In 4 months he went from "needing intervention" to above level. I was commenting to her about how impressed I was at Logan's VAST improvements in spelling and how he now reads street and business signs and how he actually sounds out words he doesn't immediately recognize rather than looking at the first letter and guessing. She was all "Yeah, isn't it neat how kids just blossom in 2nd grade?" I sort of felt like punching her in the face.

Logan still needs to work on reading and comprehension, but not because he's in danger of failing. He came so far in such a short amount of time I think by this time next year it's very possible he'll be reading well above his grade level. He probably won't be a bookworm 3rd grader reading at 12th grade level, but I'm more than ok with that. My panic from the fall conference brought some good change including Logan's ear tubes and making him realize reading is important. However, I stressed out WAY too much over an issue that more or less resolved itself. My life lesson is to take what the teacher says seriously, but to step back and use common sense rather than freak out and panic.

Today I have Kaylin's conferences. She's doing well and I'm half tempted to skip out. I won't, but I'd like to.

Dum

2011-03-22T02:04:00.000-07:00

Since I have zero interior decorating ability/interest we have two large bulletin boards in the kitchen we use to display the kids' school and artwork. I am terrible about changing out everything so Logan (2nd grade) still has art projects from preschool. Kaylin has an "about me" poem titled "I am" that's been up since at least last school year. It has maybe 7 or 8 "I am" statements, with the last line being "I am Kaylin." Yesterday morning I was at the kitchen table reading the paper when I glanced up at the wall and noticed "I am dum" added in permanent blue marker. Logan happened to be in the kitchen and was quite proud of himself and his genius mischief. I was quite proud that depsite the ironic misspelling, he actually READ and COMPREHENDED words on the wall that he wasn't FORCED to read! And then WROTE a sentence! Yay! Maybe there is hope for him after all :)

We had a sad/happy couple of days at work. Neptune, our beloved elderly male sea lion, died Friday morning. He had been in declining health for several months; typical old age stuff. His passing was expected, but his absence leaves a gaping hole. I don't get to work with sea lions too often, but I've always loved them. Neptune had cataracts and required daily eye medication. I will never forget the first time I had him "hold" so I could administer meds. I held my left hand just below his chin level, said "hold" and he placed his enormous head in my hand, allowing me to administer the eye drops. This animal was huge! Vast! Supporting his head was simultaneously terrifying and the coolest thing I'd ever done in my life. Part of our daily sea lion feeding/show was to have Neptune come up on land with the keeper while we had him roll to his side and rub him down with our hand. It was an incredible experience I will always remember and cherish. I will miss you like crazy, you giant sea slug!

Saturday morning brought some happier news, with the birth of three red river hog piglets. Newborn piglets are adorable beyond words and incredibly fun to watch. They're amazingly agile shortly after birth, already running around and climbing over mom. Yeah, the cuteness is almost sickening. It more than makes up for the extra work.

I finally made it to Logan's flag football game on Saturday. Gene had the wrong time for the first game and I was out of town for the second. Flag football is even funnier than tee-ball! The kids range in age from 6-12. That is a HUGE difference in height and skill! Logan (8) was one of the taller kids on his team. Another older kid from another team came in and played quarterback. They ALWAYS passed the ball to the tallest kid who unfortunately couldn't catch. The younger kids had no clue about the rules and why they were doing what they were doing. It was hilarious. It was also awesome watching the young coaches (two high school or college-age guys who coach and ref ALL of the teams) grin at each other and sometimes laugh over the chaotic stupidity of the game. They never gave up, though. They kept trying to teach these kids the rules. I'm glad Logan is in this league. He's definitely learning how the game works which should be helpful in the fall if/when he plays "real" football. Logan's team lost 30-0. They have yet to score. Maybe this week.

It's a busy week with obedience for Duncan tonight, first aid/CPR training for me the next two days, parent-teacher conferences on Thursday and Friday and Kaylin's first ceramics class Saturday. Ugh. I hate obligations.

My Feet!

2011-03-17T16:10:00.000-07:00

While on my road trip I walked miles across zoos, walked up and down hills in behind the scenes areas, up and down stairs, miles on sandy beaches, miles on rough trails. My feet were fine the entire time. They aren't 100% perfect, but the minor amount of pain did not slow me down at all or stop me from doing anything I wanted to do. It didn't keep me up at night or wake me in the morning. I stretched often and forgot to take my anti-inflammatory every day except one.

Today I went to what I hope was my final podiatrist appointment for a very long time. I told Doc about my trip and he laughed and shook his head. He told me to be careful and not overdo anything and never stop wearing my orthotics or stop stretching and replace my shoes regularly. I was dismissed from his care with orders to call BEFORE anything gets bad. I'm not really being this optimistic, but it's possible I may not need to call him again until I need my orthotics replaced in a few years. I love the guy but I hope I don't see him again for a long, long time.

In other news, Kaylin and I took Duncan to the river for the first time yesterday. I was hoping to see some migrating white pelicans (nope) and was curious how Duncan would be around the water. He isn't trustworthy off-leash so Kaylin was getting dragged around while I looked at birds. First he rolled on a gigantic dead fish before barely sticking his toes in the water and deciding it wasn't for him. He ran around and sniffed everything, went completely inside a hollow log, but avoided the water. Avoided it until a group of geese came and started taunting him and he leapt completely in without a thought. The dog has no fear. It must be a favorite goose pastime to taunt dogs. Brady would swim out and chase honking geese until he was exhausted. I think Duncan would probably drown because he wouldn't stop chasing geese until he was dead. I'm glad he was on leash because I would not have wanted to go into the river after him!

Duncan had his first obedience class on Tuesday. I was still driving home so Gene took him. It was not successful. Duncan was distracted by every little thing. He barked at other dogs. Gene said he was one of the worst dogs in the class. Yikes! I was really excited because I got the very last spot in the class on sign up night. Sign up started at 6pm. I turned in my application at about 6:08 and the three classes were filled. I guess we'll just practice and do our best. (?)

Road Trip Part 2

2011-03-16T08:03:00.000-07:00

Monday we woke up to another beautiful day, sunny and upper 70s. We had no idea where we were going so headed out to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm an hour early. We found it easily so decided to drive around and see the sights. Right across the street was the entrance to Anastasia State Park. We drove back to check it out and found they charged an $8 entry fee. Hmmm. Probably worth it, but we had less than an hour before we were supposed to meet Lisa. There was a free trail at the park entrance so we hiked back into the woods. I don't think I ever stopped smiling at the live oaks covered in moss, all the palms, the green, the flowers, the tiny lizards, the EVERYTHING! We eventually came to a small pond and were busy watching and unsuccessfully trying to identify several warblers when Meghan looked down into the water and realized more than a dozen turtles were stalking us. I assume they were hoping for food, but it was really funny to watch them all looking up at us.

We met Lisa at 10am and toured the Alligator Farm. The place was awesome! Their collection of crocodilians is impressive, but what we truly loved was the huge swamp area that was teaming with gators all bellowing and calling to one another. There were probably hundreds of gators of every size everywhere, both in and out of the water. Very, very cool! Even cooler were all of the native birds. Different herons were everywhere. A huge tree was filled with dozens of nesting great egrets. The egrets were displaying and mating and building nests. I would LOVE to return when the chicks hatch out! I imagine the gators snack well for a few weeks. Meghan had never seen roseate spoonbills in the wild so was thrilled to see several. We watched an educational presentation and then left the park to find some lunch.

We ate at a taco place run by a couple of local surfer dudes and then headed back to the state park and paid the $8 entry. It was completely worth it! We first stopped at a beach covered with tiny crabs. We watched the crabs for a while and then went to another area where we walked on a long boardwalk to the real ocean with crashing waves, surfers and lots and lots of brown pelicans. Did I mention how much I love pelicans? I counted at least 50 :) We finished our state park experience with another hike on a forest trail. We didn't see too many animals other than some tiny lizards and a few squirrels, but many of the trees were labeled and some had informational plaques, so we actually learned quite a bit about the plants.

We said goodbye to Lisa and sadly headed out of Florida and North toward home. We stopped at a couple of junky souvenir stands and just had a fun time looking at the birds and scenery on the way. Our plan was to meet Meghan's aunt at Zoo Atlanta the next morning, but it was pouring rain and she cancelled. Unfortunately, we didn't have a backup plan of somewhere else to meet so decided to blow off the zoo and head on home. By the time we made it through the horrible (but not as horrible as Chicago) traffic and another two hours to Chattanooga, we decided to go ahead and stop at the Tennessee Aquarium before powering our way home. That place was awesome! I was impressed with everything, but the highlight of my day was watching an octopus move all over its enclosure and check out some plastic toys its keeper had put in as enrichment. I've seen lots of octopi in aquariums, but they're always jammed into a corner or under a rock. It was So. Cool. to see this one moving all over the place. Other aquarium highlights were the seahorse exhibits (especially the foot-long leafy sea dragon), the many turtle exhibits and the floor to ceiling aquarium with views on every level from above to below. I had been told over and over how cool this place is, but I guess I had to see it for myself to understand!

We took turns driving and napping and somehow managed to arrive home around 11pm. It was an incredibly fun trip. We did five zoos/aquariums in five days (six in six days if you include Peoria,) went to two beaches and stopped at several places to check out the wildlife. We basked in the sun and warmth and were beyond happy to be among old friends and flowers and green everywhere. I could not possibly have had a better travel companion. We had pretty much the exact same interests and wanted to do all of the same things. It was a good, good time.

That said, it's good to be home! I think Duncan has been physically touching me for the past 12 hours. Tiger braved the evil dog to sit on my lap and purr and was very happy when I brushed the um, Spaghettios? out of his coat. The kids were asleep when I got home so it was fun to surprise them this morning. I need to clean out my car and unpack and do laundry, but I'm exhausted and just want to veg in front of the computer and maybe take a nap. I don't have to go back to work until Sunday so I guess I CAN. Yay!

Road Trip!

2011-03-14T03:51:00.000-07:00

Meghan and I are in sunny, beautiful Florida. Yesterday was a gorgeous day- sunny and mid-70s. We are basking in the sun and warmth. Today is supposed to be more of the same! We've had bad internet connection the entire trip so I haven't written many emails, updated this blog or facebook and haven't been able to upload any photos. I'll probably have to wait until we get home. If this blog entry publishes I'll be shocked.

We left Peoria at 4:30am on Friday and arrived at Nashville Zoo at 11:30. We stopped in Metropolis, Illinois for gas and got our pictures taken with their "famous" giant Superman statue. It was an easy drive with no traffic. Meghan dropped me off at the zoo and I had lunch with Julie while Meghan had lunch with family in town. We met back up later and Julie toured us around the zoo with behind the scenes tours of giraffe barn, anteaters, education animals and their herp/aquatic area where we got to see their frog and crayfish breeding programs and go on exhibit to pet rhinoceros iguanas. I was allowed to traipse around the anteater barn, getting licked by a dozen giant anteaters. No babies yet, but we did get up close to their new baby giraffe and get a tour of the amazing giraffe barn. Julie is in the education department so we got to go see all their education program animals. We played with a kinkajou, prehensile-tailed porcupine and several birds and reptiles before going in with their New Guinea singing dog and the grand finale (and possible highlight of my entire trip)- a young lynx that Julie helped hand raise. The lynx was adorable! And so soft! It was rubbing all over us and then started headbutting us like a housecat. We could have played forever, but he started getting too excited and rough so we had to get out. He was purring loudly and loving the attention. Adorable!

We stayed with Julie Friday night. I went home with her after work and Meghan went to dinner with some of her former coworkers and friends from town. It was great to have some time to catch up with Julie and see her beautiful new house. We sat in her hot tub for a while and while I wasn't originally thrilled with the thought, it was really relaxing and great for my feet. I might consider getting my own if it wasn't for the whole getting out part. It was around 40F and getting out was pretty horrible. I can't even imagine doing this when it is below freezing! Brrrrrrrrrr.

We left Nashville for Atlanta around 8 Saturday morning and with the time change arrived at the aquarium at 1pm. We waited in line 40 minutes for tickets with an entry time of 3pm. We immediately got in another line for restrooms, another line for food and by the time we got our food ate it in yet another line to get in to the aquarium. The aquarium was everything I hoped it would be! The whale sharks and manta rays were impressive! The exhibits were so well lit you could actually see everything. We loved the belugas and otters and penguins! We didn't love the crowds. It was like being at Disney World on a busy afternoon. The place was amazing, but I don't think I'll take Gene and the kids back anytime too soon. Ugh.

We drove out of Atlanta and south through Georgia, stopping for dinner and eventually for the night in (I think) Ashburn. I was tired and slap happy and didn't realize I accidentally turned on my iPod that was in my purse. It was so loud I could barely hear the front desk girl. I was thinking how incredibly rude she was for not turning down her music! Suddenly I realized it was MY music and I couldn't stop laughing. I probably embarrassed Meghan, but she's a big girl and can take it :)

We still had a ~3 hour drive to Jacksonville and arrived at the zoo around 11am. We toured on our own until Lisa got off work at 1pm. Then Lisa toured us around the rest of the zoo and took us behind the scenes of her area and the surrounding areas. She works with giraffes and has two adorable babies. We also got to see elephants, bongos, okapi and the newborn Grevy's zebra close up, as well as the rest of the Africa area. Jacksonville Zoo is gorgeous and has some amazing animals. I got to see my first giant otters! They are indeed huge! However, with all of the zoo animals, Meghan and I were most impressed by the wild native birds. We spent forever watching dozens of wood storks nest in the zoo trees. We saw several types of herons, ibis, cool little warblers we couldn't identify... We were thrilled to see little lizards zipping around and mostly happy to just bask in the sun. It was so completely awesome to be surrounded by green and flowers and warmth. Sunday evening, Lisa took us to the beach. We took a long walk and then went to dinner and talked and caught up. It was really enjoyable.

Today (Monday) is supposed to be sunny and warm again. We spent the night in St. Augustine and are meeting up with Lisa again and heading to the Alligator Farm. We may start our trip home tonight. We'll probably stop at one more zoo in either Atlanta or Chattanooga. We'll see. It's been a really fun trip! I wish it wasn't flying by.

Happy March

2011-03-06T02:24:00.000-08:00

I'm being a blog slacker again! My life isn't exactly boring, I've been plenty busy, but nothing worth writing about. Duncan is doing really well with housebreaking and learned a new trick- bow. I've been clicker training him and happened to capture "bow" in the morning because he stretches over and over. It's really cute. Now I just need to figure out how to train "down" because he doesn't lie down unless he's sleeping. I plan on signing him up for beginning obedience this Thursday, so that should help. He's getting a little better about jumping on people and is mouthing (biting lightly) a lot less. He's young and crazy.

I'm very excited about my road trip (gasp!) this week but am overwhelmed at how much I need to do. All of my summer clothes are in a Rubbermaid box on the top shelf of my closet. I need to find clothes and wash them and clean out my car and pack and shop for a few things. I used pretty much every minute of my weekend- I didn't slack- but still have so much to do before I leave on Friday!

I got Kaylin signed up for a ceramics class that starts at the end of the month. She opted to try ceramics over drawing. I'm sure she'll love it because they get to do all kinds of work with clay, including using those (I don't know what I'm talking about) pottery wheels. I've always wanted to try that myself, but never enough to take a class. Kaylin loves painting pre-made ceramics, so I'm sure this class will be a blast. She considered taking drawing as well, but that would be 4 hours of every Saturday for 8 weeks. Kind of a lot...

Logan's reading is improving significantly. He's been up to 2nd grade level for a while and keeps getting better. His spelling improvement has me shocked! In first grade he only sounded out the first letter of the word and then had no clue how to spell the rest. He might spell "dog" d-a-k. He didn't think about it and didn't care. It was literally painful to spend so much time on spelling because he had to memorize each word. Second grade started out this way, but he slowly started sounding words out. He still had to memorize, but it wasn't quite as bad because at least the memorization made sense to him. Last week I got wrapped up in my own work and forgot about spelling until the drive to school Friday morning. I called out his list of words and he spelled ALL of them perfectly on the FIRST try! All 20! I about keeled over from shock! He's even passed a few pre-tests where they don't see the words first. This week he didn't pass the pre-test because he didn't know there were two ways to spell weak. He learned and remembered. Phew! I'm hopeful that his reading will continue to improve without intervention or tutoring and once he gets it down he'll be able to breeze through the rest of grade school. I really do believe his reading problems all stemmed from complete lack of interest.

Well, I should spend the next hour before I have to get ready for work doing something useful. I wonder if I'll wake Gene if I get my summer clothes down from my closet? Guess I'll find out :)

Driving Mr. Duncan

2011-02-26T01:48:00.000-08:00

Duncan is my first small dog. At first I was terrified of his high terrier energy, but really, he's no worse than any of my previous dogs. And at 17 pounds instead of 80 or 90, when he jumps on you it's no big deal. I've been thoroughly enjoying his fearlessness and his independence. This dog is afraid of nothing- or if he is afraid, he checks out the situation or thing (vacuum cleaner) and quickly determines that he is indeed capable of defeating it. This dog does not cower or hide, he joyfully confronts his fears. He likes to be with me if we're home together (thank goodness because he requires constant vigilance!) but he seems to have no issues with separation anxiety. He sits and shakes, is starting to learn some basic manners such as not jumping on or barking at visitors, but he's still so young that excitement often overcomes training. I'm quite biased, but I think this dog is terribly smart and has huge potential!

One thing I was not prepared for with a small dog was car rides. Big dogs are incapable of getting to your feet. There is no room for them on your lap. They can't bounce around the car too much because there is no room. They hang their heads out the window and enjoy the ride. The worst thing they do is occasionally shift the car from drive to neutral or get nose prints all over the windows. Driving with an unrestrained (and untrained) small dog is similarly horrifying to driving with an unrestrained cat. Extreme joy and extreme fear are equally dangerous to the driver!

I thought I had this issue mastered by using a pet carrier. Our first drive was home from the shelter. It was 20 minutes of silence and goodness. Yes! The pet carrier is perfect! Until the second time I used it on the way to/from the vet's office... I wedged the crate onto the back seat, but this time Duncan didn't want to be crated and somehow managed to move the crate from behind the driver's seat to flipped up vertically behind the passenger seat. We then tried Kaylin sitting in back with Duncan on a leash. It works ok, but she needs to be constantly aware of where he is and her attention span isn't very long. Plus, I need Kaylin in the car. What about when I'm alone? Last weekend I invested in a car seatbelt harness. It's a regular harness, but you string your seat belt through a special loop. I finally tried it yesterday and let's just say it worked- but not as the manufacturer intended. Between the harness and seat belt, the poor dog was so tangled he could only lay nicely on the front seat and not move AT ALL. I think it took me a full minute to get him out of the contraption once we were home! We'll have to make some adjustments :)

Speaking of adjustments, Tiger is finally starting to accept Duncan. He actually slept in our bed WITH Duncan for a few hours the other night. Tiger is now more irritated than fearful of Duncan's chases and "attacks." I can't believe Tiger hasn't actually hurt Duncan; they must have some kind of understanding between them because Duncan deserves to be bitten and scratched!

I am in excited planning mode about my road trip in two weeks. This week I found out that we'll be spending the night with my friend Julie in Nashville. I also received an email from Lisa that her zoo had a baby anteater and some cheetah cubs born this past week, with a zebra foal due any day. That's on top of the baby giraffe and leopard cub we were already excited about. Nashville also has a baby giraffe and baby anteaters due any time. The rest of our plan includes finally seeing the whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium and hopefully a tour of a huge animal sanctuary/breeding facility close to Jacksonville. We're still deciding which zoo to stop at on our way home, but may stop in Chattanooga at the zoo or aquarium or maybe we'll even see Rock City. I just know that I can't wait!

Hair

2011-02-22T01:07:00.000-08:00

I've never particularly cared about hair. I've had the same hair style for the past 25+ years and imagine it won't change much if I live another 50 years. I give my own hair almost no thought other than the occasional glance in the rearview mirror that reveals it's long past time to cover my gray. I probably wouldn't even bother with coloring it if it weren't for those pesky brats at Latchkey who ask if I'm Logan's mom or grandma?

I always figured one parenthood battle I'd never take on was hair. I mean, what could be less permanent? A Mohawk or purple spikes are much better than regrettable tattoos or multiple facial piercings. If my kids want to express themselves with their hair, more power to 'em. Or so I thought...

Kaylin has extremely thick hair that tangles and mats easily. It's also very fine and frizzy. And it turns out she cares about as much about hair as I do. Her hair has been barely shoulder length for years. I nag and remind her constantly to brush it. No, that's not good enough, you have to actually brush out the tangles! I would NEVER even mention your hair if you would brush it right to begin with! This is our every morning battle. One of two things I continuously nag her about. (The other being the messes she makes in the kitchen and doesn't clean up.) The problem is, she's right- she can brush her hair smooth, perfectly untangled and shiny and it looks like crap in 5 minutes. I've begged for help from hair stylists. I've spent $$$ on special conditioners. I've researched online...

Yesterday Gene left work early. Kaylin begged him to take her for a haircut. Her hair is now almost as short as mine and she apparently wanted it even shorter but Gene said no. I am glad he took her and not me! Wow. It is so short! I was running my fingers through what's left and it is sooooo thick. I can't believe she can even get a brush or comb through it! I still haven't seen it dry because it was wet when she got home and then she took a shower. I imagine it will be a fuzzy little frizzball :) I teased her that in a year or two when she hits puberty her hair will curl just like mine (and it probably will) and we can have identical cuts! She rolled her eyes and didn't comment.

So Mom, you've been warned! Kaylin's hair is SHORT.

Yay, the snow is gone!

2011-02-18T01:48:00.000-08:00

Duncan is doing very well this week. He has been LOVING running around the back yard. Our idiot neighbor dog barks and Duncan tears along the fenceline, back and forth until he bores of "chasing" Timon. I haven't seen it yet, but Kaylin claims he loves going down the slide on the swingset. He now knows "sit" but is having a rough time with "down." I'm planning to sign him up for an obedience class that's a prerequisite for a beginning agility class. Agility is the doggy obstacle course race for time. I think he could be fantastic. He certainly loves to jump and climb and I doubt he would fear the tunnels or ramps. I've always thought agility looked like a blast but never had the right dog. Duncan may be the right dog!

Logan will be starting flag football this weekend. He's disappointed because he wants to play REAL football. We convinced him real football doesn't start until the end of summer and this will hopefully help him with some basic rules and skills. It's also a perfect league for us because it's only one day a week for about an hour. The first two Saturdays are practices to learn the basics and the next 6 weeks are games. Their uniforms are NFL replica jerseys so that should be fun. Gene and Logan play almost nightly football games in the living room so I'm glad Logan can play on a team.

Kaylin has a major case of spring fever. She is sick to death of school and just wants to go on vacation. Spring Break is the first week of April. Gene and I both have it off work and plan to do something, but I don't know what. We don't want to plan anything too big because if the Cat union workers are out on strike Gene will have to work. I imagine we'll end up driving somewhere for a few days. I'd like to go to Atlanta, but we'll probably end up in St. Louis.

Meanwhile, I'm planning a whirlwind Florida roadtrip with a couple of my coworkers. We begged and pleaded and talked our new boss into giving three of us five days off together to go visit a former coworker and her new baby giraffe in Jacksonville. We hope to stop at Nashville Zoo and Georgia Aquarium on the way down and spend two days in Jacksonville before a marathon drive home and work the next day. Ugh about work the next day, but the trip should be a blast! It'll be in mid-March so only a few weeks away!

My feet are ok and I will be fine with walking around a few zoos, but I wish they were completely better. I don't want to run, but I'd like to be able to walk and bike for exercise. I want to be able to run an agility course with Duncan. I'm sort of back on my old course of coming home from work, showering and plopping in my chair the rest of the evening because my feet hurt too much to do anything else. Also, I'm still somewhat restricted at work and staying off uneven surfaces. I just want to be able to clean the poop off of the lion hill without thinking about it or having to ask my relief to do it on my days off! Stupid feet.

More Duncan

2011-02-10T02:13:00.000-08:00

Duncan came home Tuesday afternoon. I was hoping to beat Kaylin home, but I arrived about 5 minutes too late. She was back in her bedroom changing clothes and all I could think about was surprising her. I snuck in the house and let Duncan out of his crate. Whoops! I totally forgot about Tiger! Duncan's first greeting in his new home was a puffed-up, hissing fatcat. A cat he was more than happy to chase back and forth, the length of the house, over and over again while Kaylin and I doubled over with laughter. Well, there goes my carefully thought out introduction between pets... Tiger isn't thrilled with the new addition, but he's coming around. Hopefully Duncan will force Tiger to exercise and lose some weight.

Duncan made himself right at home and immediately explored everything and just seemed very comfortable in his new surroundings. There was no slinking off and hiding or whining in fear- he was happy and confident and thrilled with his new toys. At 3:30 we took him to pick up Logan. He jumped right in the car and enjoyed the ride. Gene came home around 5 and Duncan went rigid at the sight of the van pulling into the driveway. I was all "Ooh, I bet he's finally going to bark!" I had been fearing his bark. I was expecting a high-pitched yip yip, but as Gene came to the door in his Arctic explorer parka, I was thrilled to hear a deep, growly ruff. Duncan cowered as Gene entered the house in his huge coat, but he didn't pee in submission and after about 20 seconds of Gene comforting him, Duncan was fine. So far, that's the only time I've seen him afraid.

As I expected, Duncan is not housebroken. He has been very good about peeing nearly every time he's taken outside. He has no qualms, however, about hiking his leg on the hideous old couch Tiger likes to scratch on. I suppose this will finally give us the motivation to get rid of the thing :) We tried to let him into the backyard, but the snow is too deep and he'll only stay out for a few seconds. The front walkway is completely disgusting right now because it's dug out with high walls (for Duncan, anyway) on either side perfect for hiking his leg on. It's completely dappled with yellow pee spots. I should take a picture to commemorate housebreaking a dog after the major snowstorm!

Otherwise, he is sweet as can be. He is currently curled in a ball on the footrest of my recliner. He sleeps nicely in our bed. He snuggles with me. Duncan also can be a bratty terror. He is high energy. Kaylin didn't quite understand the concept of NEEDING to play with him following his day in the crate while we were at work/school. She wanted to kick back on the couch and Duncan wanted to PLAY! Things should be much better when he can be let into the backyard to tear around, but right now he needs to be actively entertained until he wears out. So far he has destroyed a pencil and some cardboard packaging, but both happened while he wasn't being directly observed. I think once a routine is in place and he has learned some basic manners he'll be an excellent dog. I know I'm in love :)

Duncan!

2011-02-08T00:12:00.000-08:00

Last Friday my kids were out of school but the neighbor kids had school. I couldn't handle the thought of them coming over and ruining the rest of my day off so shortly before they were due home, I took the kids and left. I wanted to pick up my paycheck stub (I have direct deposit but my vacation time, etc. is on my stub and I needed to check it) and figured the animal shelter is close to the zoo- we might as well check out the dogs.

This was our umpteenth shelter visit and my expectations were low. I figured we'd quickly wind our way around the kennels of pit bulls and giant, unruly mutts and then seek refuge in the cat room. Seriously, I have been to the shelter MANY times since Brady died and have only been interested enough in ONE dog to actually request to see him. That dog was already taken and was adopted by one of Kaylin's friends! Anyway, we quickly made our way past the barking mess of the usual and were practically rushing toward the door and the promise of the wonderful cats when- WHAT? What is this adorable, young, small, silent dog doing here? This is the exact dog we've been searching for! We grabbed the card and asked to visit with him. We were placed in a small "meet and greet" room and one of the shelter girls brought "Ridley" to meet us. We played and played. Shelter Girl got bored and left us. We played and played and played. Shelter Girl checked on us a dozen times. We didn't want to leave! One of the rules for adoption is that EVERY family member must meet the new pet before adoption is finalized. We tore ourselves away from the dog and went outside to call Gene. It was late in the day and there was just no way he could leave work and make it to the shelter before 5pm. I filled out paperwork to put a 24 hour hold on the dog.

To say Gene was surprised by our news would be an understatement. I had to convince him that I completely assumed our shelter visit was about rushing past the usual motley selection of undesirable dogs and then (laaaaaaaaaaa!) playing with cats for 30 glorious minutes. There was no part of me that actually thought today would be the day! Gene slowly recovered from his shock and proclaimed Ridley reminded him of his beloved childhood dog Toby. (This from one crappy cell phone photo...) Anyway, Gene spent the evening moving from shock to excitement.

Saturday morning was unbearably long. Adoption viewing doesn't start until noon. Kaylin and I went to Farm and Fleet and Big Lots and picked up some doggy essentials. Kaylin's art class was from noon to 1:30 and I used that time to shop some more. Kaylin and Logan decided they hated the name "Ridley" so Kaylin and I came up with "Duncan" (a character in the series of books we're currently reading.) We spent a good hour playing with Duncan and then finalized the adoption. Gene loved him. During the ~2 hours we spent with him he never once barked or whined. He is very mouthy (bitey) but very gentle (soft mouth- his play biting doesn't hurt.) He is 8 months old and maybe 15 pounds. Duncan definitely weighs less than fatty mcfatcat Tiger.

I'm not deluded enough to think we're bringing home the perfect dog! He was picked up as a stray so is most likely NOT housebroken. He's a terrier mix so I'm sure he'll be a stubborn pain in the butt to housebreak and train. I'm also sure he'll show his true colors and start barking immediately. However, he seems like he will be a great match with the kids. He's sturdy enough that they won't hurt him and small enough he won't hurt them. In the limited time we spent with him he seemed intelligent and happy and good. He was neutered Monday and if all went well should be able to come home today. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it! I'm trying to devise ways to get out of work early (I've already been given permission to leave early, but I mean EARLY :) The kids have been bouncing off the walls for 3 days. Ack! I hope everything goes well and by tonight we have a dog!

Snowprah Winfrey

2011-02-04T00:19:00.000-08:00

I can't remember where I read it, but Snowprah Winfrey is my favorite name for Snowmageddon or The Blizzard of 2011. Today will be snow day number 4 for the kids. I really wish there was school today, but I suppose having the weekend to dig out sidewalks and turn lanes will be much safer for walkers and bus drivers. As of last night there were no turn lanes onto or off of Detweiller. It was a hard, sharp turn for my dinky Toyota; I can't imagine trying to turn a school bus. We were completely snowed-in on Wednesday. The plow got our street around 4pm. Kudos to the City of Peoria! The last big storm 3 or 4 years ago it was THREE DAYS before our street was plowed and I had to get rides to work. This time they even came back sometime during the night and plowed our street wide enough that we don't have to dig out the mailbox!

I was stuck at home Wednesday. Fortunately, several people live within walking distance of the zoo (or a short drive) and made it to work. We had made extra diets and prepared for a day with only a few people. Roz sent me photos of several areas before any snow was cleared and many of the doors were half covered. It was amazing how bad it was! I imagine our maintenance crew will be digging out paths for days. One of the park crews came in Thursday and used big tractors to clear our employee parking area and paths to the dump area. They hauled away several dump truck loads of snow and accomplished in a couple of hours what it would have taken our guys all day (or longer) to do. What a mess! I was just thrilled there were paths cleared so I didn't have to walk through ANY deep snow with my bad foot. It's incredibly much better, but uneven surfaces still make it flare. Thanks Doug!

Wednesday morning I headed outside to start shoveling. I wasn't in any hurry because I knew I was almost certainly stuck for the day. I made pancakes for the kids and dinked around before bundling up and heading out around 9. Gene HATES snow more than I can express, so I went out and cleared a path from behind our cars to the garage. The snow was so drifted behind the cars I knew the snow blower wouldn't handle it so I started digging out by hand. I eventually got to a less drifted area and started up the blower. It worked for about one minute and never started again. I did a huge area by hand. Meanwhile, the neighbors were out with their working blower. When they finished Gene went and asked if we could use their blower to finish our end of our driveway. I don't know how they got the thing over, but husband, wife and dog came over (their three kids were already in OUR house.) I was still shoveling away and not paying attention to them. The dog came bounding up and started jumping on me. He was leaping into my face when he nailed me with his teeth, cutting below my lip, chipping one of MY teeth and causing me to bite the inside of my lip. The cut doesn't look like much, but it was deep enough that it bled the entire rest of the time I was outside- at first a lot but then just small dripping. Idiot dog! It's Friday morning and my lip is still swollen and my tooth is sensitive enough that I may have to go to the dentist. I was planning to give the neighbors money for the use of their blower, but forget them! I'll probably end up paying $$$ for dental work. Oh, and word from the kids is they're planning to get ANOTHER dog to breed with idiot dog so they can make money. Yes, folks, please pass on the DNA of the most mentally challenged border collie in the history of the world!

The kids have been cooped up playing video games for several days. They played outside for hours on Wednesday, but Tuesday was too windy and Thursday too cold. They won't be happy, but I'm going to force them to come on grocery errands with me today. As of last night the neighbor kids still had school. I'm going to check the closing list right now and hope at least I'll catch that break :)

Final post of January (probably)

2011-01-30T16:38:00.001-08:00

I'm basically just making this entry so I can write "blissfully boring and normal" three posts in a row :) Oh, and get one more post in for January since I've been such a slacker this month. Probably because my life has been so blissfully boring and normal!

The kids got their report cards on Friday and it really set the tone for a great weekend. Kaylin's was excellent and Logan improved in everything. I was so relieved! He brought Cs in Reading and Language Arts up to Bs and got As in everything else. He was recently moved up to "green dot" books and while I have no idea what that means, he is VERY proud of himself! He's been choosing books and actually reading willingly most nights. Occasionally, he even reads at Latchkey or in bed for fun! I don't know if he'll ever be a bookworm, but at least I feel confident that he'll be ABLE to read what he needs to.

Kaylin and I have been reading the Series of Unfortunate Events. Right now we're on book 11 of 13. These books are the hilarious sequence of misfortune the three Baudelaire children face following the death of their parents due to arson. It sounds terrible, but the writing is fantastic and the books are some of the funniest I've read. It's like having our own little book club; we get to discus all the crazy and unlikely things that happen to the kids. I hope we can find another series to share after we finish this one because we've been having lots of fun!

Tess the cat decided to move back inside the house. She's been living in the garage ever since Tiger moved in almost two years ago. It would be a good thing, except elderly kitty is a major puker. I haven't cleaned this much cat vomit since Sharon's Molo stayed with us. She's been sleeping in Kaylin's bed and last night puked on Kaylin's pillow. Kaylin had to move out to the living room for the rest of the night. Ugh.

Gene and Logan are playing their nightly tackle football game and I can't concentrate. Hooray for it being almost February! Four more weeks and we can at least START thinking spring!

Tiny update

2011-01-28T03:17:00.000-08:00

I realized it's been almost two weeks since I've updated, but I suppose that's because life has been blissfully boring and normal. Work, school, home. Lather, rinse, repeat. My foot is holding up well at work with no brace, no meds and little pain. Gene's work is going well and the kids are doing well in school. Tomorrow is Tiger the cat's 2nd birthday and yes, we are going to par-tay! That's as exciting as it gets this week :)

Footloose

2011-01-17T01:12:00.000-08:00

Life is back to blissfully boring and normal. My foot is holding up well at work. I expected to be in huge amounts of pain following a full day, but it's completely tolerable. My left leg is still noticeably weaker than my right, but it's getting better every day. I didn't work with my cast enough to mess up my previously healed right foot. My tendon injury on my left foot doesn't hurt at all and the plantar fasciitis pain is improving. I actually have a glimmer of hope that just maybe my foot pain will actually go away. I hope!

Logan had his follow-up appointment from his ear tube and adenoid surgery. The audiologist tested his hearing and everything was in the normal range! That's a huge change from just a month ago! The tubes are in place and he doesn't have another follow-up for 9 months. He was having weird pressure issues at first but I'm pretty sure they've resolved. I'm not positive because if I ask about his ears he just gives me a horrible look and makes a grunting sound. Gene took him to the appointment (since I already missed so much work and was finally back full days) and I had to lecture "Seriously, Logan, you HAVE to tell the doctors and nurses if anything hurts or feels funny!" He gave me a horrible look and grunted :)

Kaylin started taking art classes at Lakeview. It is the same teacher she had at her primary school. I was a little worried she'd be discouraged because the class is for ages 9-14. She was (according to her) the best in her classes last year and some of the older kids are drawing AMAZING stuff. She's had two 90 minute classes and loves them. They've been working on architecture, drawing from photos. Kaylin was one of three kids to win a cookie for drawing detail. (?) When the class is over the parents are invited in and the teacher shows everyone's work. He always teases Kaylin because she can't help but add "cartoonish" detail. Everyone else is very serious about drawing their building- Kaylin adds the sun and covers the walls with birds and flowers. It cracks me up that the teacher has to work so hard to suppress how annoyed he is. Dude! It's a 10-yr-old drawing a building. Lighten up!

Freedom!

2011-01-10T14:35:00.000-08:00

Yes! Yes! Yes! I am so happy and excited! Today I not only got doctor clearance to go back to work full-time, but also graduated from the horrible, heavy cast to a slightly padded fabric brace! I find it hard to describe how much I hate that cast! It is The. Most. uncomfortable and awful thing I've ever been forced to wear. It made my other leg hurt, made my plantar fasciitis in my other foot flare, completely knotted the calf it was on. My knees and back hurt. Basically the cast was ruining my entire life! Seriously.

Hopefully I'll be able to handle a full day of work without too much pain. I think I will be fine. It will be nice to be able to take things more slowly, do a better cleaning job, spend some time with my animals and actually take breaks. Yay! I'm ready!

Fan-cee!

2011-01-09T03:07:00.000-08:00

Friday morning Logan and I had a breakfast date. Instead of our usual Bob Evans or IHOP, Logan chose Le Peep. Le Peep is a chain restaurant, but rather than flaunting their chain connection, they pretend to be a mom and pop. The menu is huge and diverse and I believe they probably do actually mix pancake batter and crack their own eggs and possibly even cut up their own potatoes. In other words, the food actually tastes good and fresh rather than the processed, fake taste of Bob Evans where I imagine most everything is poured from a package.

Much of the restaurant decor is similar to Bob Evans- hugging stuffed snowmen and generic paintings. However, unlike Bob Evans, the tables are covered in vinyl tablecloths, there are water carafes and actual glass glasses on each table. The windows have curtains instead of blinds and classical music plays instead of lite rock. The Le Peep wait staff wear polos, so Bob Evans, with their button-up shirts, actually has classier uniforms.

Anyway, my point in this never ending description was Logan's reaction to Le Peep. He was SO impressed at how fancy Le Peep was. He spent our entire meal looking around in awe and just taking in all the fanciness. The tablecloth pretty much blew his mind. (I was laughing because it was similar to the tablecloths a former boss used to hang so the tigers could look at them for visual enrichment.) The GLASS water pitcher and glasses were too much to take in. The ceiling fans (plain brown, nothing special) were so fancy! The music! He just kept loudly exclaiming over and over and over how FANCY the place was. It was hilarious! He was very disappointed that this fancy restaurant still had gum under the tables...

I started really thinking about it and other than theme birthday parties (with plastic table coverings) and Grandma Kaiser's family dinners, the kid has probably never been anywhere else that uses tablecloths! I don't even own one. Almost all restaurants these days use plastic cups. I guess the "fanciest" we get is an occasional trip to a steakhouse and even they use plastic cups, at least for the kids. And the steakhouses certainly aren't blaring classical music!

Wow. A very casual before-school breakfast is my 8-year-old's fanciest dining experience to date! I'd consider taking him somewhere that's actually fancy, but then I'd have to figure out how to rein in his loud enthusiasm for pointing out all the fanciness. I'm thinking the other patrons and staff might not find it as amusing as those at Le Peep. Yep. We're just not fancy folk.

Back to Work!

2011-01-04T12:14:00.000-08:00

I finally made it back to work! I will be working half-days for a week and then will likely go back to my full-time, regular schedule. I'm still in the cast until further notice. At first I was extremely annoyed about the half-days, but today I am glad. Would I have worked all day? Of course! But man, I'm tired. I haven't been on my feet that much or worked that much for 7 weeks. My feet hurt, but the pain is from being on them; my tendon injury area doesn't hurt at all. My plantar fasciitis hurts a little. I'm putting heat on my bad foot and stretching my good one. I think I'll rest and elevate the rest of the day.

My morning was wonderful. I got an awesome reception from my animals. It was so cool! Yes, I really, truly, actually, for real believe most of them recognized me and were happy to see me. Probably the most flattering greeting was from Darwin, the Galapagos tortoise. Usually the Galaps aren't overly fond of human contact. Darwin heard my voice and immediately came up to the front of his stall to say hi. He even let me rub his head a little. It made me feel really good. I had a volunteer who helped a lot. The piglets are HUGE! It's great to be back!

The kids also went back to school today. After nearly two weeks of staying up late and sleeping in, they were zombies this morning. Kaylin was happy to get back to her friends but Logan was very sad and wished for more time off. Gene went back to work yesterday. We really did have one of the best vacations I can remember. It was great to just hang out and chill rather than go, go, go the entire time. I'll have to try to remember this when I have time off and am not hobbled :)

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T19:54:00.000-08:00

It's 10pm New Year's Eve and I'm writing just to stay awake. I'm thinking there's no way I'm going to make it to midnight, but I'm at least going to try. And then when I fall asleep the kids can wake me up at 11:59, I'll scream and celebrate and hit my bed at 12:02. Gene had big plans to go to a hockey game but both kids were adamantly against it. I love hockey but then started thinking about climbing up and down all those stairs in my cast and sort of had to side with the kids. They have a Jim Thome bobblehead night coming up in a couple of weeks so I think Gene's ok with putting off going to a game. (Why Thome at a hockey game? No idea.)

The new plan was to watch a movie On Demand, but the movie we wanted wasn't yet available and we couldn't agree on anything else. We're watching an American Pickers marathon on the History Channel instead. We played Hedbanz for a while, the kids made a pinata and now they're playing marbles. I've read about "crackers" in Harry Potter books and have been curious. I was thrilled to find some at Target and bought them. The crackers were my hockey game for the night. The kids were terrified of the pop. Well, the pop turned out to be extremely lame and not scary, but the lame pop was nothing compared to the lame crackers. We had 9 and not one worked the way it was supposed to. Each and every one had to be manually ripped open. The kids liked the prizes and the paper crowns ok, but the bad jokes were the best part. Overall, a disappointment they didn't "explode" their contents, but still fun.

We ate Avanti's and got stuff to make cookie monsters. It's been a fun night, but the later it gets, the grumpier we all get and the more the kids fight.

The kids' vacation has been amazingly relaxing. I'm sure it's because I'm hobbled and not forcing everyone to go, go, go and do as much as possible. Kaylin spent two days in a row doing almost nothing but curling up on the couch or in her bed reading. It was awesome. Logan's been playing way too many video games, but he's also spent lots of time playing football with the neighbor boys and playing on the floor with cars and marbles. Nobody besides me has been getting out of bed before 9. Gene and Kaylin were in bed until almost noon yesterday. We're all just being lazy and while it's not my usual way, it's been fun. I think it's going to be really tough to transition back to work and school.

Do I have a New Year's Resolution? I want to lose some weight and have an adventure, but mostly I just want my feet to get better. If that happens, I'm going hiking. In the mountains.

The Hungry Rock, Take Two

2010-12-28T01:39:00.000-08:00

I finally have a date set to go back to work! I need a permission note to return and my doc is on vacation this week, so I have an appointment on Monday to get clearance to return and will start back on Tuesday. I will likely spend my first few days back working part-days cutting diets and hopefully doing some other light stuff and then get back into my string. I keep laughing at myself because I'm just as excited about going back to work as I would be if I had a big vacation planned. Every time I think of it I get a little wave of happiness. Hopefully the happiness will last at least a little while!

Gene's been off work since last Wednesday and the kids have been off school since Thursday. We've had a wonderful time! Santa came Thursday morning and the kids have maximized their time with new toys and video games. Kaylin got the Playmobil school. It is currently taking up our kitchen table with its hugeness. The set is detailed down to Playmobil figure sized pads of paper. It's one of the best sets I've seen; even Logan likes playing with it. I think Logan's favorite present is a set of bases. They're white rubber, slightly raised and very heavy. He sets those things up everywhere and slides into them about a million times a day. I literally just replaced all of his outgrown school pants and jeans (ALL with ripped out knees) right before this break. It will be a miracle if any of his new jeans make it through this week with knees intact!

We've mostly been hanging around home together, playing with new toys and games and having fun. We left home Sunday morning and headed to Starved Rock to get away and spent the night at Grand Bear Lodge. Being at Starved Rock and being unable to hike drove me INSANE. There was a ton of fresh snow so the kids bundled up in all their gear and played in the snow on the picnic tables and then slid down the hills from the visitor center. We then drove around to a viewing area at the dam and spent some time watching eagles and watching a barge come through the locks. That was really fun and required very little walking. The waterpark resort is maybe half a mile from the main park entrance. We checked in at ~12:30 and were happy our room was ready. We were starving so headed over to the amusement park building to eat and play before the kids started swimming. The food was incredibly expensive and just barely edible, but that didn't get us down. The amusement park was open, but so understaffed I think there might have been one person running all the rides. Well, we just ate and all the rides spin or drop so that didn't get us down. We moved into our room. The deal was that Gene would take the kids to the waterpark right after the Bears game. Meanwhile, I took them to the arcade and we had a wonderful time. I couldn't swim this trip because I need my cast to walk and didn't want to even enter the water area because there are so many jets of water it would have been hard to keep my foot dry. I drove around and found a Subway for dinner while the kids swam and Gene played on his computer. I returned to the room, put everything away and figured I'd at least try to relieve Gene and watch the kids swim a while. They'd been at the waterpark a little over an hour and I assumed they'd want to stay MUCH longer. Nope. It was so freezing cold they were ready to be done.

Both kids took long, hot showers and agreed they were done swimming for this trip. The waterpark was fun, but the cold water made it miserable. Wow. All I can say is that water must have been COLD. My kids swim until they're blue and then protest leaving. To not even want to TRY again? Brrrrrrrrr. We hung out in the room until 8pm when Gene took the kids to the hotel's showing of How to Train Your Dragon. Eight is way too late for me to go to a movie! I knew I'd be asleep in seconds so I just stayed at the room and read (and fell asleep within seconds.) They liked the movie and had a good time staying up late.

The plan for Monday was to swim all morning until we needed to check out and then hit the amusement park until we were ready to head home. Well, the kids didn't want to swim at all and the amusement park didn't open until 11. They wanted to go back to the arcade. We packed all our stuff and checked out of our room, hit the arcade for a while and left the resort around 10am. We drove around LaSalle-Peru just to see what it was like and then headed home. We stopped and picked up lunch in Chillicothe and were home shortly after noon. It was kind of a bust of a trip, but strangely- we all had a good time doing the things we did and were all perfectly happy being back at home. For anyone considering it- I do NOT recommend Grand Bear Lodge in the winter! It can be a great, fun place, but go in the summer when the barely heated pools are no big deal and the amusement park is actually staffed! Starved Rock, on the other hand, was absolutely beautiful with all that fresh snow and I would have LOVED to hike back into some of those canyons! It would have been amazing!

I hope to spend my final week off work playing with my kids and cleaning and decluttering the house. Today the Christmas decorations are coming down!

It's beginning to look a lot like

2010-12-21T02:17:00.000-08:00

The past several days have been great! Logan returned to school on Friday following his adenoid/ear tube surgery Wednesday. Other than some weird pressure issues (this seems to be minor, but annoying) you would never know Logan had anything done. He's been tearing around with Kaylin and his cousins, doing great. The make-up work from missing two days of school was tough to finish with all of the family fun and the call of fresh snow and video games, but I think he finally completed everything. I would never in a million years take Logan out of school for a week of vacation with this teacher! We'd need another week just to make up her work. On a normal night he has more homework than Kaylin who is in middle school with 4 primary teachers! And this is all scheduled homework we get notice of on a handout at the beginning of the week, not stuff he's goofing around and failing to finish in class! Ugh.

Saturday was the Kaiser family Christmas. It was crazy-fun to get all of the kids together to tear around and destroy Grandma's house. There were 10 great-grandchildren ranging in age from ~9 months to 10 years. It. Was. Nuts. From the phone calls I've gotten I'm thinking Grandma may be reconsidering her role as Hostess of Major Events. Smart move, Grandma! I do not volunteer to play host to anything, but will gladly cut pies and bread or make finger jello and celery with peanut butter at YOUR house :)

Sunday was Christmas with my family. Again, there was plenty of mayhem with 5 kids running around, but nobody fell in the lake or fell down the stairs, so I'm thinking perhaps the jammed CD drive on the computer will be fixed and forgotten. One thing we noticed was that the kids don't seem nearly as eager to open presents as we were back in the day. All of them were perfectly fine with playing together for a couple of hours, eating dinner at a normal pace, playing some more while things were cleaned up... My brothers, Sarah and I were all remembering being so excited about presents we could barely eat. Being so impatient we whined and begged the adults to hurry. Feeling like we made a MAJOR score on those odd years we convinced the adults to do presents before food. Our kids love opening presents as much as we did, they just seem to have WAY more patience. My mom suggested that maybe it's because they have SO MUCH. Well, of course they do, but so did WE! I'm wondering if maybe the big treat now is being with each other? I might not be remembering correctly, but it sure does seem like as kids we took a LOT of trips to Champaign, St. Louis and even Cissna Park to visit my mom's sisters and our cousins. My dad's side of the family got together regularly and we saw our cousins (at least the ones who lived nearby) all the time. Perhaps with this generation's working women and busier lifestyles the kids aren't getting together as much as they used to and playing with cousins is more of a treat than presents? Just a guess because I know my kids are insanely excited about opening presents on Christmas morning!

Gene and the kids have work/school through Wednesday and then we're all off until January 3rd (the day I will HOPEFULLY be returning to work!!!!) This will likely be the last time for a few months we'll all have time off together so we're hoping to go somewhere for a couple of days. The issue is my foot and that I can't be on it. The other issue is our perfect option would be a water park resort, but we don't have custom swim plugs for Logan's freshly tubed ears. Hmmmm. What can we do in driving distance where I don't have to walk or do stairs and doesn't involve swimming? Um, not a lot that I can think of! I'm going to call the ENT office today and see what they say about over the counter ear plugs and whether Logan should be swimming so soon after his tube placement. If that works out, great! If not, I have no idea and am open to suggestions.

My foot is getting better. I still don't put weight on it if I'm not wearing my cast. Around the house or short walking distances I don't use crutches. If I'm going to be walking a lot I still use one, but mostly because my left leg is so weak from being completely off it for 5 weeks, not because it hurts my foot to walk. My plan is to use my remaining time off work to somehow equally rest my foot, but also slowly work myself back into being on my feet for extended periods. I probably won't go immediately back into doing my usual physical job on my feet for 8 hours straight, but will work part days and maybe do light work like cutting diets for a while and work myself back into full duty. Hopefully that process will take like 3 days, lol.

Logan's surgery

2010-12-15T10:44:00.000-08:00

Logan had his ear tubes/adenoid removal surgery today. It was at the surgery center just down the street from our house. We arrived at 7am, supposedly to fill out paperwork. Um, I signed 2 or 3 things, all while standing at the reception desk and that was it. The paperwork took about a minute or so and then we sat and watched the Today show until 8am when Logan was finally called back. We went to another room and got Logan changed into a gown, filled out more paperwork and I was sent back to the waiting room. I'm not sure why, but I was surprised to find out Logan needed to be intubated and have an IV for this surgery. After all, it only "maybe" took 15 minutes. But I guess, duh, how would they keep him masked down when they were doing the adenoid portion?

Anyway, after about 20 minutes in the waiting room, the doc came out and told me everything went well. He said Logan's adenoids were so large he was surprised he could breathe through his nose. WOW! Logan doesn't even snore. In recovery I asked him if he ever had trouble breathing through his nose and he said no. I suppose the adenoids were probably contributing heavily to his ear issues, so I'm glad they're gone. The doc said someone would come get me in the next 15-30 minutes when Logan was ready to go to recovery.

A full hour later... They wheeled the gurney to the recovery room and my poor boy looked puny and pitiful. He was incredibly nauseous so stayed in recovery MUCH longer than we hoped. He never actually vomited, but clutched the little pink basin to his chest the entire time. He looked terrible. The anesthesiologist was awesome with kids and had all kinds of tricks to ease the nausea. Logan finally begged the nurse to let him go home. She allowed him to get dressed but said she wanted him to walk around a little before he left. He jumped out of the chair, walked in a circle and WHAM! the nausea hit again full force and he was back in the chair clutching his stomach. Awesome Doc returned with some more tricks and Logan was able to leave. We got home a few minutes after 11am.

I picked up Logan's prescriptions and went through the Steak 'n Shake drive thru. I was a little nervous about him eating a cheeseburger, fries and a shake when his stomach was so shaky, but that was what he wanted and he chowed down every bite. Fortunately, he felt much better after eating. Despite his sore throat (supposedly from the tube, not the adenoid removal) he's eating and drinking and shouting at the Mario game and talking nonstop. He's a little bit cranky, but otherwise I think he'll be just fine. Right now he's furious with me because I won't let him go play with the neighbor kids.

Learning to Cook

2010-12-10T02:47:00.000-08:00

Kaylin has been really interested in cooking lately. She wants to make meals and wants to do the work by herself as much as possible. Cool! A dream come true for me! I still do the "oven work" because she's so short it's hard for her to reach in and pull something out safely, but she does most of the prep work, menu planning, etc. She's been making some more "complicated" things like green bean casserole, but right now we're mostly working on easy stovetop things like pasta and eggs.

Last night we got home a little late. Gene was out with his friends and Logan had a lot of homework. Kaylin wanted to make dinner but I wanted her to do something easy. Score! We found a bag of frozen ravioli. Kaylin boiled the water and carefully added the ravioli. She likes to experiment so she added a few pieces of spaghetti and a few other noodles. I was busy with Logan so wasn't paying attention. The ravioli only needed to boil a few minutes. Kaylin drained it no problem and called Logan in for his partially cooked piece of spaghetti.

I made a comment like "Oh, you put some spaghetti in there?" Kaylin answered "Yeah, and I also put a few pennies in the pot." I freaked out. WHY would she put pennies in with our food??? GROSS! I told her I'd make myself a sandwich because I wasn't going to eat that! Kaylin was totally confused, but I was all "DUH! Pennies are filthy! And metal! I'm not eating something they've been cooked with!" Kaylin doubled over with laughter. "No Mom, not pennies, PENNES! You know, the pasta tubes?" Yeah. We laughed the rest of the night.

I'm trying my best to keep her interested in cooking. She really wants to experiment and change recipes and tweak them. She couldn't have a worse set of teachers! Gene is rigid in following instructions and more concerned with the mess than the product and I am clueless and uninterested. I have tried and tried over the years, but cooking just doesn't interest me. If Kaylin can be my personal chef the next few years that would be super. Kidding! Sort of...

Off topic, Logan's reading has progressed so far, so fast! The "click" I was waiting for in his brain finally happened. He reads out loud and only has trouble with big, strange words when he doesn't know the meaning. He's scoring much better on comprehension and he's even (gasp) reading for fun in bed at night! (I mean, it's only for a couple of minutes because he falls asleep so fast, but WoW!) The difference in his spelling is night and day. Practicing spelling used to be the most frustrating thing in the world because he would sound out the first letter, but nothing else. Every single word had to be memorized. It was terrible! Suddenly he gets it and can spell anything that is phonetically "normal." It's then easy to memorize a few weird words. He's also FINALLY able to read all of his homework instructions so can do most everything by himself.

And quickly, speaking of homework, I have complained endlessly about Logan's word searches. Kaylin brought home the ultimate last night. Sixty-three astronomy words. Seriously? This thing would have taken her HOURS to do on her own. Why? You better believe I helped her! She would have kept me up bawling about that thing until midnight. With both of us working together it still took nearly an hour. Gene even helped with the last several words when he got home. What a crazy waste of time!

Ugh

2010-12-08T13:27:00.000-08:00

Friends, family and coworkers have all assured me that my 10-year-old doesn't REALLY believe in Santa. She's faking because she doesn't want to hurt my feelings. She's faking because she's thinks she'll get more presents. She's faking because she WANTS to believe. Nope. Some girl Kaylin rides the bus with got locked out of her house today and came over here to use the phone. She's staying until her dad gets home from work ~5. She's in 6th grade and Kaylin sort of wants to impress her. Kaylin just told her she got the video game they're playing from Santa last year. Sigh. Fortunately, the girl either didn't hear or pretended to not hear.

Final Christmas Shopping

2010-12-08T09:54:00.000-08:00

I dragged my gimpy self out of the house this morning and went to ToysRUs for attempt number two at buy one get one 50% off on the two Wii games we wanted to get the kids for Christmas. The first attempt was by Gene on Sunday and they were out of Donkey Kong Country. I figured (correctly) they'd be getting almost daily shipments so it was worth another try. The other game I wanted was Mario Super Sluggers, a baseball game Logan will likely love.

The obvious thing would be for us to give Kaylin the Donkey Kong game and Logan the baseball game. However, since the kids refuse to stop believing in Santa, these games will be their joint gift. They will come with a note from Santa stressing the importance of sharing. Santa might as well teach a lesson.

I then went to Dollar Tree for D batteries for what will likely win Worst Toy of 2010- the slimy bug maker. I read several reviews and all were poor, but this is the ONLY toy Logan wants and has talked about and asked for over and over. While there, I overheard an older man shopping with his adult daughter. It was his first time in a Dollar Tree and he could not BELIEVE that EVERYTHING was only a dollar. It was completely awesome listening to him grabbing everything in site, completely marveling over the bargains. I'm thinking Dollar Tree just gained a new customer. He won't just come to town for Tractor Supply anymore!

My foot is slowly improving, if only slightly. As long as I'm wearing the cast, I can put weight on my toe so can now toe touch while I use my crutches. That makes life MUCH easier! I can also stand in one place with a little weight on my left toe so I can actually do dishes or cook. So far, my "good foot" is holding up well to the extra stress. I'm still bored absolutely to death, but as I can do more with less pain, my attitude is improving.

My boring life

2010-12-05T10:12:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm bored half to death. My foot isn't really any better and the thought of 4 more weeks off work is pretty much killing me. I am, however, in a much better mental state since talking to one of my friends from another zoo who missed a YEAR of work following a freak accident that nearly left her blind. She was in town last week and we met Thursday night for dinner and a nice long vent session. I think I needed to hear myself express all of my ridiculous concerns out loud to realize how silly I was being. She made me realize that as much as this injury sucks, it is giving me the gift of time. Time to de-stress and decompress and really think about what I need to change and how I can be a better and happier person at work. Time to calmly and logically deal with Logan's reading issues and time to take him to ear doctor appointments. Time off with my son during his surgery and recovery. Time off with my family over Christmas break.

My only problem is that I really work better under pressure. The fewer time constraints I have, the less I accomplish. That was probably the thing I disliked the most about not working outside of home. I am still totally dependant on crutches, so I can't be on my "good foot" (formerly my bad foot) for long periods. Also, my shoulders ache from the crutches. I need to accomplish SOMETHING at home during my time off!

The kids got their mid-term grades. Kaylin kept up her As. Logan brought up his Cs in Reading and Language Arts to Bs! His nightly reading practice is paying off! I've really noticed how much his spelling has improved as he becomes a better reader. That's what I assumed would happen last year, but I guess his reading never improved enough. I've said it before, but I think he really just needed to be told there was a problem and that knowledge gave him the kick he needed to improve on his own. He needed to understand the school work was actually important. He didn't care before. He cares now.

We got 4 or 5 inches of snow Friday night and the kids have been thrilled. They played outside until 9pm Friday and were up early Saturday and back outside. PawPaw picked them up at noon and took them sledding. This morning they were out in the freezing cold playing some more. Then the neighbor kids joined them and now all 5 kids have been inside for the past two hours. Gene told them they needed to get out of the living room and be quiet for the Bears game that started at noon, but the girls are by the window playing DS and the boys have a hockey rink set up in the middle of the floor, with flying sticks and yelling and balls everywhere. Littlest Boy is standing directly behind a goal and I'm waiting for him to get smacked in the face with a stick. I guess that's a positive aspect of being in the cast and on crutches- Gene can get his bloody little body bundled into snow pants and boots and carry him bawling home to mama. Great, all three boys have now started playing tackle hockey, wrestling on the ground. At least sticks aren't involved.

I guess I'll pay bills and balance my checkbook. Maybe I'll take a photo and have Christmas cards made or maybe I'll skip it this year. Dunno.

Logan's ears

2010-12-01T01:16:00.000-08:00

Yay! Logan's ENT appointment went very well! He's scheduled to have ear tube and adenoid removal surgery on December 15th. I'm thrilled to get the surgery in this calendar year when we've already met some of our huge insurance deductible. Before seeing the doctor, Logan saw the audiologist and had his hearing tested. She said he has no inner ear damage and therefore none of his hearing loss is permanent. Hooray for that! She also said his ear drums in both ears aren't vibrating at all so his hearing is pretty bad right now, especially in situations like school where there's a lot of background noise when the teacher is talking. That's also possibly why I hadn't noticed the increasingly bad hearing at home because without all the "clutter noise" he seems to hear me just fine.

The doctor surprised me speechless with the adenoid surgery. I had obviously expected ear tubes, but since I don't know what adenoids are or what they do, I hadn't considered their removal. Logan's not a big mouth breather or snorer; it wasn't something I'd thought of. Anyway, he said adenoids work as a "sewer" for the eustachian tubes, keeping the tubes filled with fluid. In kids Logan's age removing the adenoids almost always helps noticeably with the ear problems. Ok. The doc picked up on my surprise and went on about how we could wait and see and do the adenoids later, but I assured him I was just surprised and needed time to process the news. I most certainly DO want them removed if it will help Logan hear better!

Meanwhile, a nurse at the office scared me straight about my torn tendon! She went on and on about a similar problem she had last year, but her tendon (probably the same one) completely ruptured. She had multiple surgeries that included removing tendon from another part of her body and transplanting it to her foot. She also had much of her foot and ankle rebuilt with metal plates. YIKES! My foot hasn't touched the ground since hearing that horrible story! I will be a good girl and use crutches and bear no weight on my foot!

My good news about my foot was that I complained to my doc about how awful my air cast is when I am just sitting in my chair. I told him I understand my foot needs to be stabilized, but it hurts worse with the 10 pound cast dragging it sideways (due to gravity) and isn't there something LIGHTER I can wear while I'm sitting around doing nothing? (The air cast is a walking boot with a thick sole and goes up to my knee- good for working in, bad for sitting around with your feet up!) He gave me a very lightweight surgical shoe. Yippee! It's like going from steel toed hip waders to flip-flops! Soooooooo much more comfortable!

MRI results

2010-11-30T01:28:00.000-08:00

My MRI results were bad. I tore a tendon as well as some connective tissue. The tendon tear is particularly bad news because if it completely ruptures the surgery to repair it is highly unsuccessful. I will be in my beloved cast for many weeks and am off work until January 3rd. I'm supposed to use two crutches and not bear weight until the pain is gone. I will eventually be in physical therapy. Crap!

I knew this was the worst injury I've had in a very long time, but was in complete denial about how bad it actually is. I totally planned to go back to work today; I could at least work half-days. Wrong! Telling my boss last night made it real. I was forced out of denial and made to realize I will not be working the month of December. I will spend at least the next couple of weeks sitting around, keeping off my feet as much as possible. I will become proficient at carrying food and drinks and my laptop while using crutches. I will come up with creative ways to do laundry with crutches and one leg. I will be so incredibly happy that my house has no stairs!

I know I can't sit around feeling sorry for myself. I also can't be overly ambitious with accomplishing anything physical around home. I will hopefully not have this much time off work again for a very long time. I need to use the time off to my advantage and try to actually enjoy myself. I was laughing at myself last night because I was thinking at least this isn't as bad as when I was on bedrest when I was pregnant with Kaylin. I mean, I didn't do ANYTHING for two or three months! What I was laughing about was that I can't even remember how long it was. I'm sure 10 years ago I could have said 74 days. Now I don't remember even how many weeks or months. A long time? Good enough.

I have to do one thing today and that is take Logan to his ENT appointment. I can't wait to hear what he says. I hope, hope, hope Logan just needs tubes! That would be such a quick and easy fix. Yeah, it's gotta be too easy to be true!

I'm a-skeered

2010-11-29T01:41:00.000-08:00

Right now I'm suffering a big case of "what ifs" and feeling quite sorry for myself. Today I should find out the results of the MRI on my foot. I will find out if I can go back to work tomorrow. I can't even begin to express how much I want to go back to work. On the other hand, I'm terrified I won't be able to stand for 8 hours. My foot is much better than it was two weeks ago. However, it still hurts when I'm on it very long. I did nothing over the weekend other than some housework. I didn't leave the house once- not even to walk to the mailbox. If my foot started hurting I sat down for a while. Will working all day re injure my foot? Will I go from manageable, minor pain to excruciating pain? Will sitting at home another week drive me completely out of my mind? What if I have to wear the stupid cast 10 more weeks? What if I need surgery? What if whatever is found on the MRI doesn't justify having had two weeks off of work? What if I DON'T get my results today? What if the doctor is sick?

Haha, yes, I know I'm being ridiculous. Unless I actually DO need surgery(not likely), I will barely remember this a year from now. I'm making missing work a much bigger deal than it is. I'm sure it bothers me far more than it bothers the coworkers I'm "screwing over." Whatever happens, happens.

But I suppose being out of control is the reason for my mental turmoil. (Neener-neener Ruthie Roth, I LOVE starting sentences with the word but!) I mean, I obviously KNOW there are many, many people with much worse illnesses and injuries. I am not comparing my boo boo foot to someone with cancer! It drives me nuts that something that doesn't bother me at all while I'm sitting and typing this entry can keep me out of work for two weeks! Why can't I just suck it up and go to work? How did I hurt it in the first place? Why did it happen?

Yes, poor, poor me. And poor, poor YOU if I ever have a REAL illness or injury and you have to be around me!

I am going to spend what is hopefully my final day off of work taking my son out for breakfast and cleaning the kitchen. I am going to relax and watch some bad television and spend too much time online. Perhaps I'll take a little nap with my cat. I have three minor writing projects to finish. I have PLENTY of stuff to keep me busy until my doctor appointment at 5:15pm. Twelve hours and 45 minutes...

This and That

2010-11-27T02:17:00.000-08:00

While not "all better" my foot is noticeably improving! I hope and plan to be back at work on Tuesday. If not, I will be very, very sad. Thanks to the holiday, I won't get the results of the MRI I had Wednesday until Monday late afternoon so still have no idea what's actually wrong. Hopefully NOTHING!

I have spent my time off going through So. Many. Things. The entire pool table is stacked with stuff ready to be donated to Goodwill. We will be getting rid of TONS of toys, books, movies and clothes. And yet, my house is still cluttered! It honestly doesn't look any better than it did before I started. How is this possible? It seems that our stuff reproduces like rabbits and accumulates overnight. Where does it come from? Why can't ANY flat surface remain uncluttered for 24 hours? There are books, papers, toys and clothes everywhere! How do I make it stop? Aaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

My plan for my (hopefully) final three days off is to spend a day apiece in the living room, kitchen and bedroom and attempt to find a place for everything. There must be 10 coats and 4 backpacks on the kids' hooks by the front door. There should be 4 coats and 2 backpacks. I will fix that. WHY are there golf clubs in the living room when nobody in this house has EVER played golf? Surely we can find a better place for all of the papers and chapstick and books and JUNK all over every table or flat surface. It must be possible!? I'm making an attempt...

So far we've had an awesome holiday weekend. The neighbor kids have been gone so haven't been bugging me. The kids have been getting along fairly well and mostly sharing video games. Mostly. Yesterday morning Gene and I were still lying in bed when the kids started fighting about who "owned" the Mario game they were playing. Kaylin claimed that Santa gave it to HER. Ugh. Well, I can say one thing, Santa (and WHY do you kids still believe in Santa???) will NOT be bringing individual gifts this year! Santa's bringing a family present and a note about SHARING. Otherwise, the kids have been more than happy about hanging around home with hobbled Mom. It's been fun watching them relax and play. Kaylin put up the Christmas tree yesterday and Tiger the cat has so far left it alone.

I've decided to stop freaking out over Logan's reading ability. After a week of making him read out loud from a comprehension workbook I found at Barnes and Noble, his reading and comprehension have both improved noticeably. I think what was needed was for Logan himself to be told there was a problem. I think he has been uninterested in reading and had no desire or drive to improve. Now that it's suddenly a "big deal" he's like "Oh, I CAN sound out words and read whatever's in front of me. I CAN pay attention to what I'm reading and answer questions about what I just read." I mean, he still needs plenty of work, but I think that will include practice and enforced reading time daily rather than testing and tutors and $$$$. If we work with him for the next couple of months and he's still way behind his class, I will certainly take major steps with tutoring. Meanwhile, his Ear, Nose and Throat doctor appointment is on Tuesday, so hopefully that will be the start of taking care of his hearing problems.

One of my favorite restaurants near our house started selling I think 50 different flavors of soft serve ice cream. This could have been a year or two ago, but I'm not a big fan of soft serve, so have never bothered trying any. The kids occasionally get some, but I think black raspberry has been the strangest flavor they've tried. I've been bored to death with my time at home and was in a weird mood yesterday, so when Gene went to pick up our order and the kids asked for ice cream, I told him to get me a black licorice one. Both kids groaned in disgust and I figured it was worth a dollar to eat a bite or two and watch their reaction. I dramatically spooned the first bite of black licorice ice cream to my lips, happily listened to their fake gagging and quickly shoved the bite into my mouth. Pure bliss! It was the best soft serve ever! I loved it! Perhaps my occasional side order of hummus will be replaced with black licorice ice cream. Or maybe I'll try rum raisin or peanut butter. Oh Pita's, you just keep giving me more reasons to love you!

Boo Hoo

2010-11-23T09:05:00.000-08:00

I'm off work for another week and trying to make the best of it. I still can't put full weight on my heel and have an MRI scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. It's 11am and I'm still in pajamas and unshowered. Sigh. This is not who I am. I WANT to be at work! I'm bored off my gourd!

I've spent my time off scooting around on my butt, going through books and toys and stuff. I can only stand to be on the floor for a certain amount of time because my cast cuts off circulation so I pretty much go back and forth between going through stuff and sitting in my chair reading blogs. I guess the good news is that I have 90+% of my Christmas shopping done. Yeah for Amazon! But really, I don't work well when I am on forced rest. I need to record receipts and balance my checkbook which will take 10 minutes max, but I've put it off for the past week. I'm surrounded by junk mail and trash and recycling but can only carry like one thing at a time with my crutches so I stack it all nicely and Tiger the cat scatters it all over again. I'm frustrated half to death but too bored and lazy and hobbled to do anything about it.

I've kept up with the Kardashians, watched countless episodes of Made and am actually excited about the Dancing With the Stars outcome tonight. I've spent hours upon hours with a fat cat curled up on my lap. I've moved from intense stress over not being at work to acceptance and pretty much a state of lethargy. I'm terrified that all the work I put in to lose weight to (ironically) help my feet is going to be lost to my inactivity. If I'm stuck in the stupid cast for another 12 weeks I may lose my mind.

I know, I know, boo-freakin'-hoo. Lots of people have it extremely much worse. I have a boo boo foot and in or out of the cast, will probably be back at work next week. I've had a stressful couple of months and am going to do my best to spend this week chilling out and de-stressing. When I go back to work I want to have a better attitude and a better outlook on life. It's definitely time for a change for the better.

Ears and Reading

2010-11-21T00:41:00.000-08:00

Hurray, the day of Logan's doctor appointment FINALLY arrived and taking him to Gene's and my family doctor worked exactly as I had hoped. Well, except I had hoped the doc would do his "sucky worst" and blow us off and recommend Logan to an ear, nose and throat specialist. I was apparently remembering my childhood family doctor, because this doc was extremely helpful! He first scoped Logan's ears and then used some thing to measure the vibration of his ear drum. Doc left the room for a minute and brought back a printout of the vibration test. He sat down and showed me on a piece of paper what a normal printout would look like- pretty much like a single heartbeat on a heart monitor- sort of an upside-down V. Both of Logan's ears were flat lines. Doc said he took a while getting the results because he initially thought the device was not working. Anyway, that probably means there is fluid or other blockage prohibiting Logan's ear drum from vibrating, which is a necessary component to hearing well. Off to the specialist he will go!

This doc did a great job helping me understand what is wrong but wouldn't speculate on whether something as simple as tubes will fix the problem. Logan did NOT have ear infections at this visit so hopefully he'll somehow stay well until the specialist visit. I had completely forgotten that I chose this doc because when Kaylin and I saw him at a prompt care before he started his private practice, he took time with us, listened and was NOT an arrogant jerk! When we got a letter in the mail that he was starting his own practice, I immediately called and signed both Gene and myself up. I absolutely loved Kaylin's pediatrician at the time and Logan wasn't born yet. I think I still have a horrible opinion of family doctors because of the idiot I saw my entire childhood through young adulthood. I could go for YEARS without a visit and then go in with nasty bronchitis and he would act like I was a total hypochondriac wasting his valuable time. The visit I was soooooo sick and walked up to the receptionist to pay, a nurse noticed how sad I looked, questioned my symptoms and gave me a bag full of sample meds (all while rolling her eyes in disgust at the doc's ineptitude) was my final visit. I went the prompt care route until my current doc started his practice.

It's funny- I love my podiatrist and my OB/GYN. I loved two of the kids' pediatricians and the Kaylin's ENT. I like my family doc (haven't seen him enough to "love" him...) And yet, my opinion of doctors is completely skewed because of the one idiot. I mean, the guy was such a jerk and always made me feel so bad about myself. Even as a small child, I NEVER faked an illness or injury! If I was at the doctor, there was a GOOD reason. Dr. Jerkwad ALWAYS treated me like I was a faking pain in his butt, wasting valuable time he could be seeing REAL patients. Idiot.

Whew, I digress! We are supposed to be receiving a call for an appointment with Logan's new ENT. I'm sure it will be months before anything is accomplished, but I'm thrilled the ball is rolling. Meanwhile, we're working on reading and comprehension. He's doing better, but still just shuts down and doesn't even try when he encounters a big word he doesn't know. I've always hated the pointless SRA books that are apparently the major part of reading at school. The stories are horrendous and boring. They were hard to read and comprehend when all the words were simple. Now every other word is a "big" word and the nonsense stories read like a technical manual. This system of reading is incredibly unfortunate. I love reading but hate these stupid readers. The kids who don't love reading are almost screwed. I mean, when you're already struggling with just the reading and then you can't understand a quarter of the words because they throw in "impoverished" as an example of the short o sound... The whole state testing prep curriculum is alarming and stupid! How can the teachers who have been around for years and years go along with this crap? Are they totally brainwashed? I don't get it! I can help my own kid, but what about the many parents who can't or won't? These kids are doomed!

whine on

2010-11-18T13:23:00.000-08:00

Whatever I did to my foot, I don't think it's my usual plantar fasciitis. Wednesday I called the doctor who recommended I get crutches and keep weight off my foot. With PF, even at its worst when I was always in pain, the pain got better and manageable as I walked around. This I just can't even walk on. Even in the cast.

I haven't been able to do a lot during my time at home, but I am going through and weeding out lots and lots of stuff. We've lived in this house 11 1/2 years and I can't believe how much crap we've accumulated and kept. I really thought I wasn't materialistic or into "stuff." I was wrong! Why on earth do I still have ~50 VHS tapes? Do we even have a VCR? Good-bye! Do the kids really need an entire library of baby board books at ages 8 and 10? Nope. Ok, those things are easy to part with, but what about the Disney DVDs? WHY am I have a tough time getting rid of movies neither the kids or I will EVER watch again? Why is it so hard to get rid of certain toys? Ugh, and books... What is my attachment to books?

My plan for the next few days is to condense my extensive Playmobil collection to one Rubbermaid tub by eliminating all the boxes and separating smaller sets into ziplock bags. I also hope to do this with Legos. It's not a fun job, but at least I feel like I'm doing SOMETHING other than sitting around not working.

Kaylin and I made chocolate chip cookies from scratch yesterday. I'm pretty sure that was the first time I've baked anything from scratch. They turned out to be excellent. We even bought a pint of Ben and Jerry's Karamel Sutra and made cookie monsters out of the fresh cookies. Mmmmmm.

If anyone wants any DVDs, kiddie books, toys, etc., let me know soon. I'm going to take everything to work and then whatever people don't want is going to Goodwill.

Foot problems again :(

2010-11-15T14:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at work I hurt my left foot climbing up a hill when we were at shotgun practice. It was no cliff, just a slightly steep short hill. I figured it was nothing I couldn't walk off, but by 2pm I was in agony. I've had my share of foot pain in the past year and a half, but this was incredibly much worse. I hate leaving work early and calling off sick, but by 2:30 I pretty much knew I wouldn't last until 5. I finished what I was doing and went home and spent the rest of the night icing, elevating and massaging my throbbing foot. This morning it wasn't any better. I could barely stand and the only way I could walk was on my toes. I called off work then called and begged to be seen by my very booked podiatrist. Yes, today.

Doc was pretty surprised when I told him how much pain I was in. He was shocked I called off work because he made so much fun of me for working every day of the 12 weeks I was in the cast because he always offered to give me a note if I wanted one. This time he INSISTED I not work. For a whole week. Sigh. He also insisted I wear the cast again. Double sigh. He tried to give me a prescription for crutches (you need a PRESCRIPTION???) but I asked if I could wait and see if I was doing better on Wednesday with the cast and rest before I run out and buy crutches. He took Xrays and prodded around on my heel and ankle until I almost kicked him because it hurt so much.

I came home and sadly dug the cast out of the closet. Apparently I just discarded it, hoping to never give it another thought, because it was completely disgusting from its final previous wear at work. Yeah, I got to clean it first! Well, I didn't forget at all about how much I hated wearing the thing. It sucks.

Logan's family birthday party was Friday night. He had a blast playing with his cousins. Patrick gave him a Nerf blowdart gun that everyone young and old had way too much fun shooting. Andy gave him a um, flying UFO thing that you charge and it glides around the room. Yes, horrible description, but a really cool toy that again, was enjoyed by everyone. It was a fun night.

Kaylin got the good news on Friday that her B in Effort was a computer mistake and had been changed to an A. That meant she made the strait A honor roll and was recognized and given a certificate at an all school assembly. She was very thrilled her hard work paid off and very proud to show everyone her certificate. I was glad her hard work was recognized enough for one of her teachers to make the Effort to go back and change the grade!

Eight!

2010-11-10T02:30:00.000-08:00

My baby is 8. Eight! Monday morning he ran out to the car, removed his booster seat and ceremoniously chucked it in front of the garage where it remains today :) Wow. My car has not been carseat-free for almost 10 1/2 years! It's not quite as monumental as being done with diapers, but hey! Both kids spent the ride to school yesterday complaining that the lack of boosters forces them to sit in all of their spilled cereal and food wrappers. Jeepers, children, there's a simple solution to that nasty problem. They just laughed at me and Kaylin explained to Logan that he'd get used to it. He gave her a serious nod and agreed. Sigh.

We celebrated on Saturday since we were all home and it gave Logan plenty of time to play with his presents on a non-school day. We got him some batting gloves and a practice weight for his bat, a Lego set and a "5-in-1 Game Table" that sounds about 1000 times cooler than it actually is. It's an extremely cool IDEA, but in reality is fairly pitiful, with lame-o "air" hockey, basketball, pool table with large raised hump in the middle and a couple other equally poor games I can't think of. Fortunately, Logan likes it anyway. Oh, I forgot about the dolphin punch bag I found at Farm and Fleet for $1.79. I couldn't help buying it because it's an adorable inflatable dolphin you're supposed to punch in the face. Who punches a dolphin??? Anyway, it has provided the most laughs. Both of my kids and all three neighbor kids have had a blast beating up the dolphin. Also, Tiger the cat is terrified of the thing so that provides even more comic relief.

Kaylin made a cake and cupcakes. We tried to have a celebratory birthday dinner at Chili's, but left home at (gasp!) 5pm and the wait at 5:15 was already 40 minutes! Logan made the choice to go to (sob) Denny's instead. Denny's is almost right across the street from Chili's but instead of waiting outside for a table there were maybe 5 families. I wonder why?

For Logan's actual birthday on Monday he took cupcakes to school. Hee hee, there are now health department regulations so sadly "I" didn't make them, but bought them at the Wal-Mart bakery. Then for dinner he wanted carry out Bob Evans. Oh yeah. Bob Evans, the "other" Denny's! He had a great birthday, is thrilled to be out of the bay-bee seat and got two fantastic dinners :) Friday we're having yet another party at my parents' house and he'll get to see his cousins!

In other news, I scheduled Logan an appointment with our family doctor. I'm counting on him to be impatient and in a hurry and just immediately recommend Logan to an ear, nose and throat specialist. Please, Doc, do your sucky worst and get us in and out with that specialist appointment! I also talked to my zoo friend and emailed Logan's teacher and am hoping for a tutor recommendation. Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

Another round of Parent-Teacher Conferences

2010-11-06T00:34:00.000-07:00

Ah, nothing like a parent-teacher conference to shatter my illusion of well-being and complacency! Thursday evening I was already tired from a long week at work but had to rush home to shower and change and get to my evening conference with Logan's teacher. I wanted to be relaxing in my chair, but instead sat in a tiny 2nd grader chair processing words like "intervention" and "occupational therapy" and "hearing problems." Logan's issues with reading have apparently gone well beyond what I previously thought. I still believe his issues mostly stem from lack of interest and plain stubbornness. However, I also see that if we don't do something soon the reading issue will become major. The teacher went on and on about budget cuts and how Logan's not critical enough to be placed in the existing intervention programs. That basically means he CAN read Hop on Pop, but once he attempts anything past beginner level he struggles. The thing about Logan is he doesn't even ATTEMPT to read words he doesn't immediately recognize. It doesn't occur to him to sound them out. He just skips them and the story makes no sense and therefore he can't comprehend what he just "read."

As far as Logan's hearing issues, he's been to the district audiologist several times and we've been told his hearing is at the low end of normal range due to fluid buildup. He doesn't have nerve damage, he needs tubes. Then I go to the pediatrician and they either put him on amoxicillin (which does nothing) or flat-out refuse to see him (that's happened twice.) I'm on my third pediatrician and none will recommend him to an ear, nose and throat specialist! I don't know what to do! I guess I'll go back one more time and insist and demand and cry until I get the appointment. Maybe I'll try our family doctor. He's never had issues sending Gene or me to a specialist.

Meanwhile, I posted a question about Sylvan Learning Center regarding tutoring. I assumed it would be expensive but one person who replied had her 2nd grade son tested and estimated it would cost between $13,000-$15,000! That's approximately TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS more than I had guessed!!! And that was NOT one on one help, it was a small group that included snack breaks. Um, no. I have a friend at the zoo who works as a school counselor and has done tutoring and I will beg her for help on Sunday. She's much younger than Logan's teacher and hopefully knows some young teachers willing to tutor for a lot less than $15,000.

Kaylin, on the other hand... My disorganized child has pulled herself together in her first grading period of middle school! I was shocked at her change! She had 11 letter grades on her report card and 10 were As with one B in Effort. She was very disappointed with the B, but sheesh! I'm not! In middle school you just line up at the different teachers' classrooms and wait your turn for conferences. It sucks. It was nice to be able to talk to all the different teachers, though. The mystery of the Effort B was never solved. Each teacher claimed "they" had given her an Effort A so it must have been the Social Studies teacher. (Her English teacher actually said that, lol.) Anyway, I spent more than 2 hours at Kaylin's school, most of it waiting in line.

I had assumed her Effort grade came from her Accelerated Reading (AR) points being low. She always hated AR in primary school and always had low points despite reading constantly at home. I sat down with the English teacher and glanced at the printout, thinking Kaylin had 2.9 AR points. Nope. It was 29! Far more than required for her A. Probably more than she had in 3rd and 4th grades combined! It was just class after class of compliments about her work, her attitude and her (gasp!) organization. This is ALL Kaylin's effort! I've told her over and over that I refuse to nag her endlessly about her school work. She can choose to take responsibility for herself or she can deal with the consequences. Ultimately she'll be an adult and nobody will care about her grades in 5th grade. They will care about hard work and personal drive. Being born with natural intelligence is a gift to be treasured, but without the drive to push yourself to do what you love the gift will be squandered and you will be passed like crazy by the C students you previously found yourself superior to...

As for the B in Effort, I feel simultaneously furious and happy for the tough life lesson. Obviously, these stupid teachers don't realize Kaylin should get an A+++++++ in Effort! The kid has made an incredible change in attitude! Of course, the teachers don't know any of that, they see her amazing ISAT test scores and assume her As came easy. This is a good lesson about life NOT being fair and sometimes never getting a satisfying answer to why things happen the way they do. Does a 10-year-old need that lesson? Sigh.

The sad news from Kaylin's school was that Art is going to be replaced with more Writing. The students as a whole are struggling with writing so the Social Studies teacher who previously held one art class a week will now have a writing class instead. Puke. Stupid test scores! Ack, test scores are a whole other post! My other sad news was I got caught up in excitement talking with the science teacher about the upcoming animal unit and accidentally revealed I'm a zookeeper resulting in the unwanted invitation to COME SPEAK TO THE CLASS!!!!!! Shudder.

Yesterday it was my birthday...

2010-10-30T03:31:00.000-07:00

Is my use of song lyrics getting old? Tough :)

Yesterday I turned 38. I've never really sweated getting older before, but for some reason this birthday hit me hard. Don't get me wrong, I'm not feeling old, but I do feel like if I want to make any changes in my life I better get on them! It's like I'm still young enough to go back to school if I need to, but just barely... How much longer will I be able to do my extremely physical job before I have to quit? I mean, I'm hoping another 10-15 years, but then what? Is it worth putting all that time in and then what, finding another non-zoo job in the park district to keep my benefits? What could I possibly do? Secretary of golf?

I've also always wanted to leave the Peoria area. If you would have told High School Susy I'd still be living in Peoria at age 38 I would have fallen on the floor laughing! I want to move to Denver or New Orleans or Montana or somewhere in Florida. Just to see what it's like! Then I think about how instead of using my vacation time to see these places, I'd be using it to return to Peoria. Ugh to that! Plus, Gene and I have worked HARD to get where we are now. I don't want to relive my "poor twenties" in my forties! Gene has been promoted so much at Cat I strongly doubt he'd be able to get a similar opportunity elsewhere.

I'm so conflicted between adventure and common sense, risk and safety, immaturity and maturity. If it was just me, it would hardly be a risk to find another job, move to another city and make what I'm making now. It would be a great adventure and potentially a way to advance my career. Gene's job is so different. Leaving his job would be a huge financial risk and potentially very unsafe. Would it be an adventure or a lifetime of disappointment and bitterness? It's hard to predict. It's hard to take that kind of risk when the kids are involved.

Speaking of the kids, now would be the perfect time to uproot them! They're old enough to have some measure of input and independence but young enough to not be completely tied to their friends and activities.

Urgh. Knowing me, I'll go with safety and security. I don't know if I can handle going from comfortable to poor, plenty of room to tiny apartment, college savings accounts to scraping together enough change for milk and bread... I guess I'll have to take the risk I'll live long enough to see retirement and save like crazy for the emu ranch of my dreams :)

The coolest thing EVER

2010-10-28T01:36:00.000-07:00

Last week I was turning on my work computer. It was early and I was tired and sitting at the desk waiting the excruciating 25 seconds for the password screen to come up. A fly landed in the middle of my monitor. Not wanting to damage the monitor and never expecting to actually hit the fly, I gently flicked at the fly. Y'know, just to get the fly to go away. Well, the fly must have been dazed by the brightness of the monitor or something because I hit it! I hit it but didn't kill it. The fly was stunned and fell to the desk buzzing and fluttering its wings. I had a split second of amazement over what I had just done before a spider came tearing out from under the printer, grabbed up the fly and retreated to its printer sanctuary.

I was completely horrified! It was so unexpected! I spent a few seconds in shock before realizing that was one of the coolest things I've ever seen! I spent the rest of the day thinking about it, blabbing about it to anyone who would listen and generally building up this mini display of nature as the best thing that ever happened ever.

I wondered if I could recreate this spectacle? Could I intentionally reproduce the shocking event? Could I share the joy with my coworkers? I grabbed a flyswatter and went around lightly swatting flies until I managed to not actually kill one. I picked up the struggling fly and dropped it in the area the original fly fell. Sure enough, the spider tore out from under the printer and grabbed the fly! Sweet!

That started the feeding of the spider. Once or twice a day for the past several days we've fed the spider. It will only come out for struggling flies, not dead ones. I have no idea what kind of spider it is but it's about the size of a nickel and not hairy. We even tried giving it a mealworm one morning, but the mealworm was too big and the spider came out and checked it out but left it all day. I ended up removing it so our pet wouldn't be too stressed. Last night was the first time the spider didn't come out for her fly. Hopefully she's just full. Otherwise I'll have to believe she moved elsewhere because she was bored with not having to do any work. We did not overfeed her to death! Noooooooooo!

I finally remembered to pack my camera so if she does come back I plan to get it on video and post it. I have a feeling that's a blown opportunity, though...

Tortoise

2010-10-26T04:44:00.000-07:00

The photo is a tortoise eating watermelon. No blood. I was looking for a pic that would actually work with my formatting issues and cracked up at this one... It worked EXACTLY how I hoped. We'll call it my scary Halloween header.

Junior Politico

2010-10-24T00:09:00.000-07:00

The other day on the way to school, Kaylin was checking out the sea of campaign signs along Detweiller. She commented on how many there were and then was talking about how many tv ads there are. Eventually, she asked who I was planning to vote for? I told her I wasn't sure; I had to do more research before making that decision. She then filled me in on the most hilarious list of why I couldn't vote for potential candidates I could have imagined. If only I could have recorded it, because I will never remember her entire amazing rant.

"Well, Mom, you can't vote for Bill Brady because he's Wrong and Reckless. With Pat Quinn things have gone from Bad to Worse. You can't vote for Mike Unes because He's for Them, not Us. Alexi raised tax funds and Left Us with NOTHING!"

She went on and on with all the right names and campaign slams. I was laughing so hard I was crying. Probably a dozen idiot politicians blowing massive amounts of money slamming their competitors brought down by a ten-year-old girl. It was one of the best things I've heard in my life. My child is brilliant!

I usually get into the whole election thing and research and pay attention and read the paper. This year I just don't care. I'm sure I'll do some last second cramming and will go vote, but at this moment I don't feel like it. Ever since the last election when some competitor was slamming Illinois House incumbent Mike Smith for being FAT I have just lost interest and have ignored all the ads. Seriously, dude isn't in my district, I know NOTHING about him, but the ONLY thing you can come up with why you deserve the vote over him is because he's FAT??? He can't do his job because he's FAT? Wow. Kaylin got a kick out of that story.