Magic Mouse

The twins have always had a passion for their little red mousie toys. When they were kittens, Dej used to get the mousie toys in big packages with several colors, and each package contained two red mice. The red ones were always the hands-down favorite of the boys, though we were always a little puzzled as to why. The toys were identical in every single way except color. The red mice were usually mangled, destroyed and thrown away, as the boys were so rough with them.


The other mice often mysteriously disappeared before they were destroyed. We've never been totally clear on where they mice and other small cat toys went. Sometimes Daisy gets them and shreds them. Sometimes Jezi gets them and hides them in her bed. I'm sure there is a collection under our refrigerator and hidden in various strange places. Or perhaps they ended up in the other dimension in our house, where a series of both large and small items have completely vanished to never be seen again.


Last week, we found a red mouse. It just appeared one day--we have no idea where it's been for years. The boys were so happy to see it, especially Charlie. He loved that mouse with the special passion reserved only for the red ones. He played with it for hours on end.  He really loved to hide it under the yoga mat and then sneak up and pounce on it.  He carried it around in his mouth, prancing and trilling like the king of the jungle. He thumped it with his back feet until the seam ripped a bit and the poor mouse begged for mercy. He spent four or five rapturous days with his mousie love and then it disappeared as mysteriously as it came. Maybe Charlie has a special hiding place that he tucked it away for safe keeping. We may never know!


Last Sunday was my mom's birthday. We went out for dinner and came back to their house for pie and gifts. We all had a very nice time celebrating my mom's uh...45th. Here are some nice pics from that day. (Yes, I'm still very behind on everything!)

Nothing left but weeds and memories

I'm still working very hard at both jobs.  It will be rough for another couple of weeks, but things should start to normalize eventually!  We've squeezed some activities into our work-packed schedules though.  Last weekend M & L were out of town at M's cousin's wedding.  I stayed for a nice, long productive weekend.  H was with me for the first portion of it and was very chatty.  I did get a couple of days to myself though and managed to get a fair amount of work done.

Dej and I loved the dress L picked out for the wedding and wished we could find it in our sizes, though Dej is pretty sure she could squeeze into her sister's if given the opportunity.  L does not intend to give her that opportunity.  We had just gotten her a nice summer dress at the beginning of the summer.  She's not terribly into wearing dresses right now, but always needs to have one on hand so she has appropriate clothing for dressy events.  She has already outgrown that very cute dress, so we had to run out and get an emergency dress for this wedding. 

Yesterday we had to attend a family reunion immediately followed by the Heartland Farm Sanctuary Dinner & Auction.  We were all very tired from an action-packed weekend when we arrived last night, but we had a great time!  My friend, Kristin, coordinated this event.  We've been to so, so many fundraising dinner/auctions, but I've never seen one run quite so well.  I mean, I knew Kristin was a smart, fun, ball of energy, but now I'm a little intimidated by her kick-ass skills.  The girl is the flipping rock star of event planners!  Seriously, we were just blown away by what a fantastic job she did one absolutely everything. 

Dej & Russ attended with us.  We all had fun bidding on the TONS of awesome auction items, and I won the one item I most wanted and was sure I couldn't afford.  I adore these pigs and am eager to find the perfect spot to display them.

We (L, H, and I) also squeaked in a last-minute trip to Six Flags with my friend Orinda and her boys. We had great weather and it was a wonderful day. All four of the kids like the big rides and are up for riding anything they are big enough for. We got pictures of the kids and I on the Logger's Run and on Superman. Funny how Orinda managed to avoid being in any of the pictures.

Dance Camp for L and Big Changes for me!

Today was L's last day of dance camp, so the children showed us this afternoon what they've been doing all week. She showed two of the new steps she learned. They sang two songs, showed some yoga poses, told us some Hindu mythology stories, and showed the arts and crafts projects they made. She had a lot of fun and will go next year, but I'm glad the daily trips are over now for a while. That is just way too much time in the car every day!

M & I had date night a couple of weeks ago and went to the new (only) Indian restaurant that just opened in town here--Taj Mahal. It was good! Really good! We will be going back. We had perhaps the best pakoras ever, and I could live on those things! I'm so happy I can finally have delicious Indian food without driving to Madison or spending the whole day in the kitchen.

Another random item I almost forgot to mention... We went to our friends' annual garden party on the aforementioned date night. We were chatting with a woman at the party, when she started talking about her duck car. Our host heard and offered to walk us the five blocks or so to the woman's house, so we could see the duck car. It was quite a site and worth the five block walk. The rubber ducks are all glued to the car. She is planning to add ducks to the sides, too.

Finally, in addition to being slowed by my wrist's recovery (I think we've finally got the abscess/infection clearing out of my incision scar), I've been extraordinarily busy due to my changing job situation. I will be returning to teaching at a full load this semester at the college where I've been teaching one course per semester. The original intent was that when I started the semester, I would be done with my M-W job in Madison. I've been scrambling to get my four new classes designed and prepared and loaded to the student site. I'm spending every fee minute working on that, as Sep 6 is coming all too soon.

Instead of leaving my other job however, I will be working from home (not going in M-W anymore and not working 20 hrs/wk anymore) as much as I can. I will continue to do both jobs that way, in addition to homeschooling Luciana. It will be rough for the first few months, but once I get all my classes prepped and in my groove it will be fine. I will be happy to have a month off for winter break and summers off again. That will leave me lots of free time as well as time to spend on my other job.

I keep reminding myself when I panic over all that needs to be done in the next few weeks that I really am beyond lucky. I have two jobs that I enjoyed that I was trying to choose between. I know in this economic climate, that right there makes me quite lucky! The main thing I hated about my previous primary job was the commute. Now, I don't even have to choose between the jobs--I get to keep both, and just change the proportion of my time spent on each.

A little more catch up

Sketch of a dog, followed by the 'scratching' (don't know the technical name) of it.
L & H attended College for Kids two weeks ago. As always they had a blast. Dej attended CfK every year that she was in the age group (as has L) and always loved it too. They do a great job with it there, and I only wished it were two weeks long instead of one.

L & H both took digital art (Photoshop) class in the morning, so they were in that together. H made this magazine cover. They chose different afternoon classes though. L took an art class and H took a rocket building class, and we got to go see his rocket launch on the last day.
L brought home all of her art creations. I photographed the whole pile, or so I thought. Now that I look at the photos, I notice that some of her pieces are mysteriously missing from the pile. Those must be works that she didn't like as well. Her tesselation is missing, and I liked it. She complained when she showed it to me that it was crappy because she made a mistake.

This week she's at dance (Bharatanatyam) camp, which makes a very, very long day for me. I have to drop her off in Verona, which is farther west than my work in Madison, go back to work for the day, then drive back to Verona to pick her up, then finally back home. Since I hit beltline traffic on all four trips, it makes for a much too much car time--3.5 hrs today.