so my friend anne just reminded me of something.

she sent me photos of her son's birthday party. anne made a multicolored, layered cake shaped like a tall robot--BY HAND--for the kids. she coordinated the whole party in primary colors with beautiful handmade letters hanging from the ceiling...the whole thing looked like a magazine spread. this is just how she rolls. sigh. i wish i had half an ounce of that in me.

last friday big j had "Revolutionary War" day at school. he was a red coat, and had to memorize all these facts about the war, dress like a red coat and then "go to battle" against the Patriots in a quiz bowl during class.

part of the assignment was also to "feed the troops" by bringing a snack (worth 5 extra credit points).

first off, we dressed him like a red coat with a red t-shirt that said "hockey" across the front. it was the only red thing we had.

as for the snacks. i made sugar cookies courtesy of the pillsbury dough boy. they were kind of flat and ugly, but i figured frosting would perk things up. while i got sidetracked the husband came home and ate two of them. we now had exactly 22 cookies for 22 kids. i dared anyone else to eat another one, but i forgot to dare crosby dog.

she somehow ate three more.

i am not sure if she licked a few of the others in the process, but i hadn't the time or energy to care. i looked around for anything else we might have in the house in a 22 quantity.

then i looked at that plate of  flat beige cookies and said:

"so, if everyone is bringing food what are the odds that everyone will want one of these cookies?"

big j looked at the plate and said:

"no one will want them if they look like that, mom."

ok then. i put 15 ugly cookies (i threw away the four that were in range of crosby's tongue) in a bag and sent big j to school.

he came home that night with a bag of 14 smashed up cookies/crumbs, and told me he got the extra credit, even though only one kid on his team ate one and that was "because he felt sorry for me."

on the upside, the red coats beat the patriots.

on the downside, i wonder how many times anne will roll her eyes when she reads this?

so last night the husband comes home from work and i see he looks like a train wreck.

his arms are all scabbed up, his head has a huge gash on it, he has a black eye and bruises and a big lump coming out of his forehead.

i immediately put the pieces together and realize he crashed his bicycle coming home for the neighor's house in the dark the night before.

what is the first thing i think?

BLOG POST.

what kind of wife am i? he won't let me take a picture, but trust me. it's bad.

he does not want anyone to know about this. which only proves another thing (besides the fact that riding bikes in the dark is a bad idea). the husband would be a HORRIBLE blogger.

what good is a story like this if you can't tell your 12 best friends?

i did apologize when he said he thought he had a concussion the night before but didn't want to deal with waking me up to take him to the hospital.

sheesh. i would have only laughed for a minute.

poor guy.

so the fancy new blogger thing allows me to see how many people are looking at this silly blog every day. the old one probably did too, but i never looked. i saw that 12 people checked in here this morning...really? i don't even know 12 people. but once i saw that, i felt kind of guilty since i haven't written anything new in forever. life is just flying by here, as i'm sure it is for everyone. i'll give a few random highlights to keep the 12 of you in the loop. maybe it isn't 12. maybe bobbi is just checking 12 times? anywhoo... *little j. he is busy with soccer and baseball, often on the same night, back-to-back. last night in the 90 degree temps, his face was the color of his red shirt. he takes after me that way, lucky kid. he also took his first communion on sunday and was all decked out in a shirt and tie*. he was nervous about the whole ceremony, but also took it very seriously. he knows that his first communion symbolizes accepting Jesus and rejecting Satan, and he was set to do it. we had a BBQ here for the whole family and it was a fun, beautiful day. *pictures to come. *big j. we attended his first band performance and they were GREAT! i was surprised to hear how good a pile of 5th graders can play. he plays trombone and was pretty excited. the trombones got to stand up for a solo during a rock medley featuring "we will rock you" and "another one bites the dust." he was rocking out up there, puffy cheeks and all*. big j has been practicing his golf swing and his tennis serve, but neither one starts until school gets out. *pictures to come *the husband. the cute boy i married is busy trying to build a deck and boardwalk out back, between coaching the summer hockey team and little j's baseball team. we're both hoping this summer is packed with more play and less yard building. those kayaks have been calling our name. *me. still coaching girls on the run...our 5K is next saturday. also still going to bootcamp class three nights a week so i can make it through the warrior dash in june. i joined the women's tennis league on tuesday nights again, hoping i can keep up with big j and maybe give the husband a run for his money this summer. otherwise, can't wait to plant all my flowers and trees and bushes...spring fever is an understatement. i could live outside. *the pets. old sidney dog is still with us, plugging along on three legs and happy just to be here. she seems perky and still loves fetching her ball. crosby lost her collar and has been running around naked since sunday. she's a good hound. the cats are fine, pounce is still paws down the best cat on the planet and zoe could take us or leave us. there you go. that's a recap. happy day to all 12 of you...or all 3 of you repeating yourselves 4 times...:)

to all of you living under the false idea that i don't get crabby. whatever. here is what it takes to brew the perfect storm.

take one tired, tired me and stuff her into a an old ford explorer that smells like dog farts, hockey bags and the cheese popcorn that's been spilled and smashed all over the floor. fill that ford explorer with a large dog kennel containing one farting labrador, two full hockey bags, four suitcases, one big cooler, three blankets, four pillows, three hockey sticks, book bags, water bottles and a mess of tangled car chargers. proceed to a hockey store where the husband buys more hockey gear, including a bag of 25 pucks that has nowhere to go but under your feet, on top of the new hockey helmet, your purse and the water bottles.

drive the stuffy, stinky, crowded, crampy, dirty, nasty, rusty, stupid 230,000 mile ford explorer to mcdonald's and order from the drive-thru.

have clark griswald put all greasy smelly bags of mddonald's food on top of your lap, which is also holding a blanket and two pillows, and then have him ask you to hold his ice cream cone while he talks on the phone and nearly kills us all while driving through a tornado.

there we go.

the perfect storm.

glad i got that off my chest.

i think i am losing my touch here because i can't think of a single thing to tell you all (three). i could tell you about the 8 hockey games i will watch my kids play this weekend in the Cities, but my hockey stories are way overdone. so. i scratch my head. realize it's been awhile since my last lame post. wonder what i'm going to write.

my life is just not very interesting. i might have a story, though.


i have been coaching Girls on the Run again, but my heart isn't (or wasn't) in it. i even told karen on tuesday that i didn't want to go. it's hard to make your boys sit at school for an extra 90 minutes while you run around with other people's kids. the boys are less than thrilled to be there and they wonder why there isn't a Boys on the Run program. BUT, i do get why i am there. the other coaches all have girls in the program, so they generally want to run with their own girls. i am there to run with everyone else. there is one little girl there that just drives me nuts. she has tendenitis. she has a sore toe. she forgot her shoes. she hurt her neck. she always has excuses and i just want to ask her why the heck she's even there. on tuesday i decided to run just with her. i did all i could to encourage her and we chatted about all kinds of things. by the end, she had run 8 laps (her record was walking 2) and her face was one big smile. she told me "i am so happy, i'm glowing inside!" i told her that's what sweat and pride feel like all mixed together. it totally made my day. she hugged me and told me i was her favorite coach, and then asked if i would go tell her mom how awesome she did. we walked hand in hand to an old beat up, rusted out car. the window rolled down and smoke billowed out. the lady inside had a mullet and tattoos and she looked like she could beat the crap out of me. i peeked my head inside and told her that her daughter was a rock star. the daughter holding tightly to my hand and smiling from ear to ear. the lady just opened the door, pulled the cigarette out of her mouth and told her to get in.

my heart broke.

and a lesson was learned. my attitude toward this little girl totally flipped. i want to bring her home with me and love her up and tell her that NO, she's not fat and YES, she is special. i can't. but i can show up once a week and run with her. that i can do.

i love kids.

i love my kids.

pretty sure i love your kids. and your cats.

happy weekend.

just for fun, i thought you could join me on a little morning adventure with the husband. his morning routine drives me crazy. mostly because he invites a herd of elephants over and all of them apparently need to turn on every light in the house in order to function, including the light right over my head.

anyway. the husband starts his morning with a really loud alarm that goes off at 5:15 or so. it takes him at least a full minute to wake up, fumble around, drop the clock, find it, drop it again and then shut it off. then he lays in bed for a bit, making ridiculous amounts of noise and flopping around until he decides it's time to get up.

there is one really cute thing he does at this point. he walks from our bedroom to the bathroom with his eyes closed. it's like he's trying to squeeze in just a little more sleep.

unfortunately, i know that he does this, which means i am awake at 5:15 watching him do it. sigh. please keep in mind throughout this post that i am not an early morning person.

next he goes to take a shower. sometimes he forgets to shut the bathroom door. the one that's about 4 feet away from my crabby head. so i get up and slam it, but i'm sure he doesn't notice because by now the water is running and he is singing johnny cash.

after the shower, he gathers up his garanimals (matching work clothes) and lumbers with his elephant friends into the laundry room, where they all have an ironing party. the dogs get in on the fun at this point, and i listen to the husband converse with them, possibly using a megaphone.

next he opens all the cupboard doors, eats his breakfast, leaves everything all over the kitchen and begins searching for his keys, his wallet, his nametag and his shoes. he can't find any of them, so the elephants pitch in to help. they look all over. open all the doors, slam them shut. turn on more lights. stomp around. open drawers. slam them shut. open, slam, open, slam. those elephants are very thorough.

finally, mercifully, the husband realizes he is late and he runs loudly out the door, slams it hard to make sure it's shut and rushes off to work. all the lights are on. all the cupboards and drawers are open. however, all the elephants have left. God bless 'em.

twenty minutes later, my alarm goes off.

like the husband always says, sure must be nice to be me, getting to sleep in every morning.

april 1. picture kids swimming, tubing behind my kayak (redneck style) and fishing.
picture adults biking, grilling, lounging in the sun and avoiding yard work at all costs.

this was my neighborhood yesterday. it felt an awful lot like the 4th of July around here.

let's hear it for an early spring.