$60 shelter

I'm looking at a house for rent that's a hundred dollars cheaper than our budget (woohoo!) but has no yard. If no yard, why not rent an apartment and get a pool or internet included or something? The main reasons we want a house are a yard for the boy and a place to have a garden. Anyway, this house is less than a block from a city park so I did a little investigating to see if the park was any good. I don't have an answer for that question, but I did learn 2 interesting things.

#1. In Tuscaloosa, you can rent garden plots by the month. We won't, I'm sure, since if I had to drive to water my garden I would definitely let it die. Still, I am encouraged by the option even being available.

#2. At many of the parks, you can reserve a shelter. A shelter? A homeless shelter? This was, of course, my first thought. The park by the house in question even has two shelters to choose from: Dogwood shelter and Oak shelter. How huge is this park to have two buildings and why would I rent them by the day? I'm assuming they mean a ramada. When Quintin learned in a linguistics class that ramada is used exclusively in Southern Arizona, I wondered what other people called them. I'm guessing in Alabama they are called shelters. Hmm.

the best time of the week to pack

Wednesday and Thursday are prime packing nights. Why, you might ask? Well, Wednesday there's SYTYCD (much much better without Mary Murphy and the ability to fast forward things I don't care about), Top Chef, and Work of Art (actually pretty terrible, but now I have to see it through to the end).

Then Thursday is Glee (yay!), more SYTYCD, 30 Rock and now Project Runway!

I don't consider myself a big tv person, but this post is defying that personal image, I guess.

were (pretty) sure (almost)

that we'll be moving here:Well, not there exactly since that's the President's mansion, but here:
So Josh can go to school here:The University of Alabama is the Crimson Tide. I just discovered that somehow that makes their mascot an elephant. Obviously?
Pending paperwork (which to me is a huge deal, but all of Josh's previous and future professors are telling him it's just a formality), Josh will have a grant to study at the UA department of biological sciences. Since school starts the 3rd week of August, we'll be headed out of town in 2 weeks. I sure hope that insignificant paperwork gets here soon since we've already reserved a truck to ship our stuff out there. I don't know what we'd do if it gets to Alabama and we end up not going...but I'm not thinking about that. Most of the time.

way to go Alison

Jeopardy is way more exciting when you have someone to cheer for!

brrr

I haven't been feeling very artistic (i.e. I have no new photos or videos) but I did notice a lack of pictures in the last few posts. So, a compromise! Here's one of the oldest pictures on this computer and a nice reminder that there are worse things than heat.
Happy summer!

I write like...

Of course I was tempted by Vanessa's post. I defy anyone who implies you're not testing writing samples right now. On the first try, I write like Isaac Asimov. I think I'll stop now before it changes it's mind. (Who are we kidding, I can't stop now!) I tested a few paragraphs from a story I was working on and got David Foster Wallace. Who?

Update: I've done this 6 different times with different chunks of this blog and had 6 different authors as the result. I wonder if the website is telling me I have no style?

a quick poll

Chances are very good we will be moving one month. Eep. Josh is going to grad school and will likely start this fall although we don't yet know exactly where. The first of his options to actually send him something in writing will win, most likely.

Each time he interviews with a school, I look up the local weather and housing (as well as proximity to a library, Costco, and children's museum). So here is the dilemma. I think I will need to develop a point system to evaluate criteria since some things are way more important to others, like the distance to the University or a park, the price, or whether or not it has a yard.

When I lay it out like that, it doesn't look so complicated. The real question is, do we dare wait until we get there to find a place, or do we brave signing something sight unseen? Oh, my ulcer.

inside the dealership

I was reading this article where a journalist gets a job at 2 car dealerships to get the inside scoop on what really goes on behind the scenes of a car dealership and purchase. It was interesting, but long, and I mostly skimmed it.

More than anything, it reminded me of the time Josh and I went looking at cars for fun and when we told the salesman no thank you, he said, "you'll feel stupid if you don't buy it today." Ha!

26-17>9

I have a pile of 26 books waiting to go to Goodwill. This makes me feel sad, excited, grateful, and mature.

Sad because I hate to get rid of books. Excited because that means I have room for more. Grateful because it's at least one box of books less to pack and move. Mature because I had to make decisions about what books were worth moving many many many more times.

Now I can put away the 17 books I brought home from my parents' house a few weeks ago. Technically, that means I'm only saving myself moving 9 books, but I did way better than that. The books I brought home are not only classics (Mr. Popper's Penguins, Number the Stars, The Great Brain, anyone?) but small paperbacks. Most of the books I'm giving to Goodwill are big and heavy. Besides, it's all about quality, right? That's what I tell myself.

I saved these 17 books from sale at the garage sale under the pretext of our children reading them someday. Who are we kidding? I'm going to read one right now.

sing, sweet nightingale

If I were to list Disney movies in order of preference, Cinderella would probably be right in the middle. It's definitely not in my top 5, but I do love her voice and the dog and often think of Gus Gus hoarding corn when I try to carry just one more bag of groceries up the stairs. Turns out, the voice of Cinderella died on Thursday. I really love her voice.

Now, this is where the problem lies: one girl in our nursery class asks me to read the Cinderella book every Sunday when we read books. I have a really difficult time because I'm not sure what to skip over and what to include. Is it weird that I don't want to tell them about her nasty step-mom who makes her clean all the time? I don't want to create children who resent their chores (or their parents) or their long feet for that matter. I wish the book said, "even though Cinderella lost her parents and was a servant in her own house, she found a way to be happy and kind" and then focused on that, not how horrible it is to clean the house. Get over myself, I know, 2 minutes a week isn't going to turn the children into monsters, but I'm much more comfortable once we get through the step-sisters tearing off the dress and into the part where the mice make a new one.

polly

I spent a lot of time with my sister's family and kids growing up, so young children were familiar to me. I knew that you had to be careful what you said around them and not teach them naughty words, etc, but it really hit home sitting next to my nephew, Justin, at a movie. I think he was 5 or 6 (I don't remember what movie we went to see, so I can't even check!). During the previews, something funny happened (a character crashing into a clothesline, I think, and ending up with underwear on his head). Justin laughed at whatever the character said and then repeated it under his breath through the entire movie. I'm not sure he even watched the feature presentation; he was so enthralled with that one line from the preview.

Josh's dad calls Jonah "Polly" because he's entered that phase. His current favorite (that I don't know where he got) is "Whoa, look at that!" So fess up, which one of you says that? And while we're at it, who taught him "Skip to my Lou" which he sings pretty well and I know I didn't teach him.