Sunday, January 04, 2009
The cold makes me tired. Yesterday,
Chance the Dog was more than happy to take a winter's nap with me.
Sleeping is one of his favorites and he's more than happy to have a
nap buddy...
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Sunday, December 28, 2008

Once again we celebrated with family
and friends at our annual Christmas party. Children and adults
decorated ornaments, cookies, and a gingerbead house (which Husband
had assembled the night before using brute determination)...
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Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Growing up, part of our family
tradition was going out every year to pick out a tree with Dad.
I've kept up the tradition of fresh-cut trees until just two years
ago. Lazy? Maybe a little. Now we have a beautiful (okay, well,
it’s fine) artificial tree. All we need is a little pine air
freshener and we're set.
Go on, vote. The poll’s right over there in the right
sidebar...
Oh and if you have the time,
share a Christmas
Tree story..!
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Friday, November 28, 2008
StoryRhyme.com, your source for all
sorts of interesting facts and tidbits. Tune in next week as we
celebrate the accomplishments of Millard Fillmore...
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Friday, November 28, 2008
Suddenly I hear shooting and two dogs
run off. My neighbor Raul has come out with BB gun blazing...
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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

This holiday, take a deep breath and
relax with some of our very own StoryRhyme.com helpful hints.
Here's number 9: Don't serve that greenbean casserole with the
canned mushrooms and shoestring onions because it's just
gross...
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Sunday, November 16, 2008
Southern California has been burning
the last two days. There are fires all around us, the air is thick
and as I look outside, the sky has cast an ominous orange glow over
the backyard...
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Wednesday, November 12, 2008
I think I'm getting to be an old hand
at this dyeing stuff. Well, I have done it twice now. Go to the
drugstore with the top of the old box (very clever). Husband
suggests I go lighter this time (to replicate Michael's results).
Sound advice; right (from a guy who goes to SuperCuts)..?
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Saturday, November 08, 2008

First of all, we're way too cool for
this catalog (or so I thought), yet it comes anyway...
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Saturday, October 25, 2008

Charlie made decorations and signs for
everything including a "Chamber of Secrets" sign that he put on the
toilet tank; a "Leaky Cauldron" sign for the kitchen; and a
"Platform 9 3/4" sign that we hung at the front door to welcome
guests. Our Chamber of Secrets and Leaky Cauldron signs remain to
this day...
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Monday, October 06, 2008
Autumn's here, which means it was time
to get the Halloween box down from the garage shelves. Charlie's
now tall enough to do this himself (growing like a weed), and
immediately started pulling out old costumes. Before I knew it, we
had a space alien visiting. Charlie takes Halloween very seriously
and has been known to wear his costume around the house for a
week...
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Wednesday, September 24, 2008
I made a dogfood cake and gave the
dogs individual treats. We attempted to put party hats on them
(except for K.C. who was a nasty little thing), and took pictures.
What good are dogs if you can't put hats on them once in a while
for your own enjoyment..?
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Saturday, September 20, 2008
Intuitively I know that change can be
a good thing, but for me, change often falls into the category of
it's good for you, like eating your vegetables or cutting donuts
out of your diet. Not always the most fun; sometimes a challenge.
Fifteen years of doing one thing one way are now at an end...
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Monday, September 01, 2008
We tie-dyed about 30 shirts throughout the evening; and, of course,
all the adults were the first in line. A couple of Charlie's
friends came over in their new far-out tie-dyed shirts today and
they looked, well, groovy...
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Monday, August 18, 2008
I feel like such a heel. His friends
will all be starting school (right at the end of our street) next
week, without him. Today he's blazing a new trail on his own...
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Friday, August 08, 2008
Shag carpets, swag lamps, fake wood
paneling, macrame belts, and leisure suits with white shoes. Billy
Beer. This unique time seemed to spawn some really bad music...
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Monday, August 04, 2008
In upper 90s weather, with full sun, no shade in sight, we grab
pieces of rock and break them open with our little hammers looking
for anything interesting. I sat there and hummed "Breaking rocks in
the hot sun, I fought the law and the law won..."
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Sunday, August 03, 2008
First Husband, then Charlie, then me.
And I've had it the worst...
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Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Last night, my '80s mix tape as wished
for on this very blog was placed into my hands. What should I wish
for next? A winning lottery ticket? World peace..?
The other day, an interesting person out there found StoryRhyme.com
using this search query: "How to Make an Elephant Trunk for a Dog."
Well, as you all can imagine, this sent me over the moon. I am very
easily amused and entertained...
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Thursday, July 24, 2008
The little tyke sitting in front of us
performed gravity-defying mid-air somersaults. He did not have a
trampoline, but was propelled by sheer youthful exuberance. It was,
um, "fun" to see how close he could get without actually crashing
into us...
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Wednesday, July 16, 2008
When I woke up this morning and staggered out to the kitchen to
make the day's first pot of coffee, I noticed that Husband had, the
night before, lovingly cleaned and polished our little coffee
maker. This is an elaborate process...
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Monday, June 23, 2008
It's been so many years since I've read it, I'd forgotten so much.
I've seen the movies (which were amazing), and didn't remember how
different they were from the books. For instance, Tom Bombadil. I'd
forgotten completely about him. Just what is he, we wondered? A
quick Internet search of "Tom Bombadil" gave me over half a million
entries...
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Thursday, June 12, 2008

A while back, my mother-in-law gave Charlie a dry erase board
(complete with AARP logo) -- magnetic -- so, of course, it ended up
on the fridge, which is almost covered, but there are still a few
inches of white space left. Very few. My favorite piece of fridge
art right now is Charlie's picture of a monster Hello Kitty drawn
in the style of King Kong or Godzilla, towering over destroyed
skyscrapers and swatting at airplanes, using his (her?) heat ray
eyes to destroy a passing helicopter. The tanks have no effect on
him...
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Thursday, May 29, 2008
I live with cavemen, I really do. Now,
they're charming cavemen. The ladies love them, and they're very
polite, but around the house, they really regress back to the ol'
cave. My dog is a cave dog. His shedding has been in overdrive
lately and I could fill at least one pillow each day with his
cast-off cave dog hair...
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Wednesday, May 21, 2008
When Husband and I were prepping for
Charlie to start school, we didn't think the school itself mattered
as much as the parent-child involvement. While the aforementioned
is certainly key, the other night, I felt a twinge of regret as I
watched my sister-in-law doing some last-minute sewing. She was
making a tiger for her classroom production...
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Saturday, May 17, 2008
At this point she raises her eyebrows,
not expecting to hear this coming from the mouth of a 10-year-old.
She then asks, "Do you have your pee-pee cup..?"
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Friday, May 02, 2008
By comparison to Eli, Chance is a
complete slacker. While Eli would patrol the yard constantly,
Chance merely pokes his head out the dog door to see if it's worth
his trouble to go out (and for Chance, it's usually not). We
discovered that dogs, like children, are their own unique
individuals. Eli lived to please us and couldn't bear to be
scolded. Reprimands roll off Chance's back like water...
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Sunday, April 27, 2008
When the moment came to release Swingset (who, coincidentally, was
ready to be released on Earth Day; who knew?). I have to admit to
feeling a little twinge. Oh, wait. I'm anthropomorphizing...
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Monday, April 21, 2008
Happy Earth Day, everyone. Last year, Charlie and Husband made
their own "hot" composter. Husband recently went into farmer mode
and potted some heirloom tomato plants that our friend Bruce gave
us, raised from his own seed stock. He's using our compost to feed
the plants and they're very happy...
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Saturday, April 19, 2008
I know, we're wimps. Husband insists
he's had enough from his scouting days to last him a lifetime...
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Wednesday, April 09, 2008
He walks up to us as if he's about to
deliver some important pronouncement and -- burps...
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Sunday, March 30, 2008
Just how are we serving our children
by turning them into unimaginative automatons? Who will be our
future artists, musicians and inventors, not to mention the great
scientific minds..?
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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Yesterday, Charlie came home from school in a whirl of excitement,
clutching a cardboard box. No one knew what happened to the poor
thing, but Charlie, who has a reputation for being an animal saver,
was sought out for his expertise...
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Friday, March 21, 2008
He was a little nervous about going to
school the next day and wondered about the reaction he'd get from
his schoolmates...
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Wednesday, March 19, 2008
There he was inside his homemade
cardboard spaceship with his astronaut helmet on. In another
picture he wore his pith helmet with vest full of tools -- insect
net, magnifying glass, and compass...
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Tuesday, March 04, 2008
As much as I implore him to come in,
he refuses, holding his ground. The object of his ire..?
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Saturday, March 01, 2008
We have children. We love them; we teach them; we enjoy them. But
only for a few years...
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Sunday, February 24, 2008
Happy Birthday, Mary! My super sister.
A humble country veterinarian who runs her practice with her
husband veterinarian...
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Thursday, February 21, 2008
At last, Charlie received his ants in
the mail today for his Uncle Milton's Ant Farm...
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Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Last night in bed, I heard the familiar gnawing of a rat in the
attic. Here we go again.
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Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Okay, I'm really questioning my hair
judgment at this point. Refer back to
first post (mousy hair).
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Sunday, February 17, 2008
One day, about five years ago, Husband
filled out a form online to receive a free one-year subscription to
"Time Magazine." No strings attached (yeah, right). Sounds great;
right?
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Friday, February 15, 2008
Have just finished painting our master
bedroom and am happy at last. Major undertaking (for me at
least)...
Got a bad haircut today. I miss Michael. He cut my hair for years.
He moved to the desert a few months ago. Against my better
judgement, out of desperation, I went to one of those chain
salons...
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Wednesday, February 13, 2008
The other day we went to the lake, my
son (Charlie) wanted to look for new pets to bring home. To
backtrack, when he was just a little guy, about four years old, we
went to the same lake and he found a freshwater clam...
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Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Biting my nails. Court reporting (my
day job that pays the bills) has slowed down to a crawl. Shout out
to all the deposition reporters out there. What's going on..?
The house wine is not bad.
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Thursday, February 07, 2008
13.
I still haven't mastered our universal remote control.
20. Have never had a manicure.
45. Have learned to love ABBA. Read More...