back by popular demand: Dixie!

Any idea how difficult it is to take a picture of a dog? I have a few dozen of her trying to lick the camera or disappearing to sit next to me while I took them.

fess up

Someone has some explaining to do.

Last night, we were reading a book and there was a picture of school children molding clay.
Jonah: Do we eat playdoh?
Me: No, we don't eat it!
Jonah: But what does it taste like?
Me: Um, I don't know. Salty? (The homemade kind I've eaten is)
Jonah: No. It's playdoh-y

So, how would he know this? Hmmm, grandmas? (I'm just kidding. He probably ate some while I was sitting right next to him.)

Also, I've had some complaints about a lack of pictures of Dixie. I intend to fix that this morning.

Also also, Jonah is suddenly terrified of bugs. He's also fascinated with them, which you can imagine is a tricky combination.

Nie Nie skis (and I cry)

It could be the lack of sleep talking, but this video made me cry.

I think it's awesome that she's skiing and even better that she made this video to help others stuck wondering if they will ever really live again, let alone love it. Most of all, though, it made me miss my brother.

(P.S. The sleep thing is going better. We're down to taking her out every 3 hours which at our house means midnight, 3, and 6. Sunday night we might brave waiting until she wakes up instead of waking her up.)

on a walk this morning, we saw

name that breed?

The humane society worker wasn't quite sure what breed(s) Dixie is. She's listed as a weimeraner mix which is where she gets her coloring (grey) and eyes (blue). Here's a weimeraner puppy:However, because of her white patches and the coloring of one of her litter mates, they think she might also be part American Staffy. We don't think that looks right in the muzzle (or anywhere else really), but she doesn't look like a weimeraner face, either (what do we know? nothing).Our neighbor thinks she's part lab. Maybe. It wasn't until Em said that she looked like a mini Huaso that I thought to check. Look at this:

If she's part great dane Josh is dead. I told him medium.

Dixie

Josh was so offended about the lack of pictures that he insisted we take this one.If only they had scratch and sniff computer screens. Actually, be glad they don't.

we've had quite the weekend

Take a look at these beauties:So the dryer won't open all the way because it has to be on the left (and therefore opens to the wall) and the washer is a million years old and might die any day, but it's so nice to be able to do laundry in my pjs. Well, I went to the laundromat in my pjs, too, but at least now I don't have to feel bad about it. Well, I never actually felt bad about it, but one time I didn't even wear a bra (flat chested + sweatshirt weather = I'm not sure if posting this will mortify and potential male readership. Does Eric still read this? Just ignore that comment if so, kid), so it was time to do laundry at home.

The weird things on top of the dryer are a delicates basket (worth keeping? I'm thinking not since I was my delicates either by hand or with everything else) and a dryer rack for shoes or things you don't want jumping around. The guy who sold them to us said for sweaters, but I'm not sure it's the spinning around that's bad for sweaters but rather the heat. Ah well.

The thing on the right side of the washer is a clue to the reason that I've done so many loads of laundry today. Our clothes are extra smelly these days thanks to our new family dog, Dixie.* Washing dog bone (accident, of course) results in mushy dog bone.

We love her (even though she stinks), but not enough to take any pictures.

*I hope Eric does read this part: Josh wanted to call her Eric because he's still a little weirded out/flattered that you guys named that stray dog Josh.

some pictures

I knew it had been a while since I'd put any pictures up here because we got a new computer (and then a second new computer when the first one fried a week later) and I hadn't put any pictures on this laptop until this morning. Looking through, them, though, I realized how long it had really been. Here is is, the last month or so in pictures (briefly):

Jonah cooking,eating a smoothie (he asked me to take his picture),
taking a picture (his new favorite thing. I'll spare you all the pictures of the floor and Josh's legs),
eating snow. This was his idea. It snowed quite a bit last week, for Alabama anyway, and Jonah asked me if he could eat it. Yes, that's jelly all over his face from lunch. We're savages around here I guess.Josh also shaved off his goatee, but apparently we never take pictures of him. It's been almost 6 years since that part of his face has been hairless. I think it's cute. He thinks it makes him look fat and consequently has been running with me. Yay! I much prefer having someone to run with. I'd try to convince him to run this with me and A-L and Em (which race depending on how the training goes), but it's just for women anyway.

some Josh nerdiness

Josh is working on a group project for a class in which they present the morphology (how something changes within an animal or group to adapt) of the axial (vertebrae and surrounding tissue, etc.) of various animals. Hang with me here, people. I just dumbed it down, too. You should have heard what he told me to write.

Anyway, to make it more interesting, the group has formatted the presentation like a sports tournament in which the animals (with some modifications) fight each other. Since they are the axial group (other groups are covering other parts like arms and legs), the "animals" are really just the vertebrae and necks of each of the species, floating in space and all the same size to equal out other real-life factors. Anyway. Here are the animals: cat, salamander, pigeon, snake, shark, human. Let's take a quick guess as to the final order. Who will win? Who will lose? Does anyone care?

And yes, of course he's finding dumb youtube videos for each of the fights, even if it's a pigeon fighting a plastic snake. And yes, I watched that one. It was no better than it sounds.

going back to bed now

Because Jonah threw up today for the very first time in his life.

At someone else's house.

All over the couch.

2 greats and 2 not-so-greats

Great: I made this caramel yesterday (and again today, actually. More on that below) and it was great.

Not so much: With my extra caramel, I decided to make these homemade twix bars. I needed some more caramel, though, so I ended up making more. So much for using up the leftovers. They were too rich for either of us and more work than I thought they were worth. I should have made these (have a had a good idea of my own in a few years? No. I love having friends who are smarter than I am), which was my second idea. I have 1/2 cup left so maybe I will anyway.

Great: We bought Jonah a little timer and have been using it at nap and bedtime. We set the timer for anywhere from 15-55 minutes depending on our time frame and one or both of us plays and reads books and whatever he wants for that time. When the timer rings, we leave and don't come back. No more books, no water, nada. We make exceptions for "clouds" (covering him with blankets) and dirty diapers. In the 5 days we've been using it, it's worked pretty well. More than anything, it helps us set limits for ourselves, too. Who doesn't want to cuddle and read books all night? I do! But it never feels as good when it's been 2 1/2 hours and the boy is still wide awake. It hasn't solved all of our sleep problems, but it's worked better than we expected so far. Also, today after dinner Jonah walked up to me, told me a story and then said, "the timer went 'riiing...' time for Jonah to leave" and walked away.

Not so much: No, David. The nursery kids in our last ward loved this book. They liked to point out what he was doing wrong and giggled the whole way through. I read it to Jonah this week and he got more and more concerned as the book progressed (as evidenced by the furrowing eyebrows). At the end, when the Mom gives David a hug, he seemed relieved. He has since told me multiple times that he does not want to read it and we need to take it back to the library. Well then.

books, again

Nothing about Jonah, grandmas. Just more books. All YA books for that matter. I've just been through a bout of reading. Knowing me, it will be followed by a week or two of limited reading and then another whirlwind. So anyway, before I forget, here's what I thought:

I love E. Lockhart and everything she writes is lovely. I just read Fly on the Wall: How One Girl Saw Everything and thought it was quirky and charming. I was a little disappointed in Dramarama, but it was still really well thought-out. Her books are always thought provoking without crossing into heavy.

I liked Matched more than I thought I would (which is saying something because I expected it to be excellent) but was unhappy when I discovered it's part of an unfinished trilogy. I vaguely remembered Janssen saying Bart wouldn't read it for that reason, but I didn't remember until I was almost done with it. There were a lot of haters on Goodreads claiming it was just a ripoff of The Giver, but I didn't find it so. Obviously, it reminded me of it. I prefer to think of it as influenced by The Giver. I could continue with literary rhetoric here, but why bother? I liked it. So there.

The Warrior Heir, on the other hand, was better than I expected and I liked The Dragon Heir even more. The story was more intense and I bought in immediately, maybe because I was already familiar with the premise, or maybe because I liked the main character more. I picked it up randomly because Amazon keeps trying to recommend it after I purchased 3 copies of Finnikin of the Rock. It's no Finnikin, but I can't resist a good story about saving the world. They moved quickly and I was interested enough to run right out and get the second (and put #3 on hold) the same night I finished the first. That should say enough about that.

Shiver was really good (even though I was not in the mood for yet another werewolf book after finishing Nightshade earlier in the month), but Lament was...well, it read like a first book (and I don't meant that to be a compliment). I liked it, but there were tons of plot holes. The characters were full of feeling, which I appreciated in Shiver, but were harder to believe in Lament. I want to believe you're desperately in love with a guy you just met, but let's have just a moment of rational thought where you consider the weirdness of it all to help the reader along, please. I'm still torn about whether I'll bother reading the sequel.

yes, it's that good

I read Harry Potter #6 the other day. Numbers 6 and 7 are the only ones I've not read a hundred times, and I was wondering if it would be as good out of order and without the excitement of a first read-through.

Of course it was.

So then, of course, I had to read #5 again. I generally avoid it because I love Sirius and hate to see him go, but who doesn't want to see Dumbledore's Army stand up to Umbridge? Besides, Fred and George are just so dang funny.

So then, after messing up the order, I moved on to #7. I wasn't expecting it to make me cry, but when Percy shows up at the end, I did.

Now I'm reading #1, because there's nothing like reading everything all out of order. The thing is, with HP, it doesn't even matter. I could read his first trip through Diagon Alley any day. The only question let now is, should I round it out with 2, 3, & 4 when I'm done? Why is it so good? Rather than make a list (of course I have one), I'll share a memory. It was Christmas and the Young Women were wrapping gifts at the mall to earn money for summer camp. It must have been close to Christmas because my brother was there (as the YW got sparse as family parties cropped up, dad and Q were recruited to wrap, too) and brother Olguin was our security detail. Imagine our surprise when we looked over and he was reading Harry Potter. That's when we knew it had gone from "that cool book Mom has in her classroom" to "something even distinguished (relatively) old men read in public". Excuse me, now. Harry is about to get his wand.