Friday, April 30th

Which means May starts tomorrow. Yikes! 1/3 of 2010 is just gone. Wow.

1. Miranda has started telling me when her pull-up is wet or dirty which means we might, finally, be getting to a point to start potty-training. A girl can hope, anyway.

2. I started the week with a bad cold that has morphed into a serious allergy attack. Spring is definitely here. The amount of anti-histamines consumed by this household is pretty amazing. And, of course, we're all taking different ones. Helpful it isn't.

3. My friend Vicky Olson found this website called TerraCycle which will allow us to start recycling other items in our household our townships won't take in the bins. Way cool!

4. Finished stitching page 2 of White Lilies on Red on Wednesday night and started right into page 3 last night. Progress! It is beautiful and it's going to be huge. I keep going by focusing on half a page at a time, and that's all. And I don't worry about a deadline.

5. Went to the movies by myself last Friday night and saw The Losers. I don't care what a lot of the critics said; I liked it! Of course, there were only 15 other people in the theatre. Yes, there were so few, I was able to count them easily. Sigh.

6. It's a sad day when I have to order new coloring books and terrycloth bathrobes for my children from Amazon because none of the stores I visit have either available.

7. Sat around most of yesterday thinking of "You know you're a lazy housewife when..." aphorisms because I wasn't feeling well and the house was a mess. Then I spent some time looking on the web about what to do when you feel like a lazy or frumpy housewife and the common answer was: work more! Work on your image, your wardrobe, your weight, etc. Ugh. What I really need around here (cue laughter) is more work! Whatever.

And here's Jen.

Since I only ever seem to update my blog on Fridays

I had better get to it.

1. The biggest event of the week was the 2.5 hours Miranda and I spent at the allergist's office Wednesday afternoon. The great thing was we learned about Miranda's allergy to coconut (which explains why store bought cookies always give her the worst stomach ache--almost always made with coconut oil!) but doing the scratch test with a 40 lb, incredibly strong 3.5 year old who doesn't understand why you won't stop the nurse from poking her back (15 times) is emotionally and physically wearing. Poor woozle. She seems to have forgiven me, though.

2. I also met with Alex's teacher and case worker this week (Wednesday morning--it was a busy day) and we all agreed the new medication isn't working and we need to try something else. He is too emotionally fragile and falls apart for the strangest reasons at unpredictable times. So, Alex and I are off to see Dr. Jay later this afternoon to ask for a new script for a new drug. Like I've said before, experimenting on your children with psychoactive drugs is such a fun process!

3. Big thanks to Mimi the Great for hanging with Alex on Wednesday when Miranda and I were with Dr. Lania and she'll be with Miranda this afternoon when Alex and I go see Dr. Jay. It makes my life a lot easier to only be dealing with one child at a time.

4. I made some serious progress on my cross stitch this week. Should be able to have page 2 finished up in 2 or 3 more sessions.

5. Today is going to be a busy day but if I get everything done, I'm going to the movies tonight to see The Losers all by myself. Marshall said I deserve some respite. Woo-hoo!

6. I went to Kohl's last night to use up some coupons that were expiring and found Miranda some cotton summer pajamas (which are a lot harder to find than you might think) with optional tutus. I think she's going to love them. I'm still bummed, though, that the ones with fairy wings were polyester.

7. We're going out to eat with Mark & Vicky tomorrow night and Ashley is coming to watch the kids and put them to bed. So it should be a nice and relaxing weekend with lots of breaks from the kids.

And here's Jen.

Another Bleary Friday

1. Miranda seems to have forgotten how to sleep through the night, so, even though Marshall was gracious enough to get up with her at 2 am when her pullup leaked, I still feel like I haven't slept enough. I did not, however, go back to sleep after the bus came, but attacked my errand list with a vengeance.

2. Videos: Watched The Proposal last week with my mother and was so utterly charmed by it I decided to find director Anne Fletcher's movie from last year, 27 Dresses, which I watched last night and it was almost as good.

3. Stitching: Finally making good progress again on White Lilies on Red and if I keep this up, I'll finish page 2 in the next week. Had to do some frogging last week which threw me off for days.

4. Books: Three weeks ago, right before my father came, I read Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin and I couldn't put it down! I read all 400 pages in one day, in between playing with the children and putting them to bed, etc. I'd heard about it when Mark Halperin was on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me in January and it sounded fascinating and it absolutely was! I highly recommend it, regardless of your political preference. To quote my favorite episode of Farscape ("Revenging Angel"): "I don't get out much, so I read." I'm also rereading the Percy Jackson series by Mark Riordan. So much fun!

5. Having fun being on Facebook, but looking back at High School is a little creepy. It's been 17 years and I have forgotten so many people! I keep getting friend requests from people I honestly do no remember. Very sad. I miss my brain.

6. I do enjoy my Facebook encounters with the HS students and other people from Hope, which was the whole point of signing up for it in the first place.

7. My mother left on Tuesday and flew to California to see all the family there. My mother and my sister-in-law are giving a family bridal shower for my brother Brandon's fiancee Piper tomorrow at my aunt's house and I am sad to be missing the party.

Bonus: 8. Had to put off the trip to Longwood Gardens AGAIN! Not a volcano eruption, just a thunderstorm. And all the wisteria is presently in bloom. So disappointed. :(

And here's Jen.

Next Friday

1. Spring Break is almost over! Yeah! My children really do better when they go to school every day. My mother is here to help me and we did some fun things on Monday (met a friend at Laurel Acres) and Wednesday (Philly Zoo), but Alex really needs to be back on his regular schedule and Miranda has been asking to go to school for 3 days.

2. A good friend of my parents has Delta miles to burn so he's giving them to me for my plane ticket to my brother's wedding in LA in July. I'll be gone July 3-11. Talk about an ideal California vacation. Marshall will be spending that same week at home with the kids. Start praying for him now. Alex's summer school session should start July 5 or 6, though, which will help. Miranda's summer school depends on the school budget passing April 20. Please pray for that, too.

3. I finally joined Facebook yesterday. I kept promising the HS students I mentor at church that I would sign up and our Leadership Team told me at our Wednesday night meeting to just do it, already. I already have 88 friends, but many of them are people from church, which was the point, anyway.

4. We got the Wii we share with Marshall's sister and her family back Wednesday and found my bowling skills aren't that rusty after a few months' worth of a break (we gave it to Leah after Thanksgiving). Nor my tennis. Of course, if I spend as much time playing as I did last night, I'm never going to get any cross stitching done.

5. Still haven't been to the movies yet since Sherlock Holmes. I think The Losers is going to be my first this spring. That is, if the reviewers don't kill it. The trailer looks fun, though.

6. Doctor Who started broadcasting Series 5 last Saturday night on BBC One. We watched it Sunday night. It was awesome. Don't tell the Torrent Police.

7. Tomorrow's trip to Longwood Gardens may be postponed as my mother seems to have caught my laryngitis. Dang viruses.

And here's Jen.

Good Friday

1. Marshall and I just returned from 2.5 days away from home and children, leaving it all in the capable hands of my parents. Marshall planned a lovely trip to Washington, D.C. The cherry blossom festival is currently happening (my mother's pictures from last Saturday are here) and we spent Wednesday walking around the city, enjoying the following:

• The Folger Shakespeare Library - I positively drooled over the massive extent of their collection and remembered how much I loved to read and study Shakespeare. Ah, life before kids.
• Turner to Cezanne: Masterpieces from the Davies Collection, National Museum Wales at the Corcoran Gallery of Art - Loved the Turner pieces. We like Impressionism but prefer Pre-Raphaelite.
• Walked the Mall from the World War II Memorial past the Reflecting Pool to the Lincoln Memorial and on to the FDR Memorial then back to the Smithsonian to catch the Metro again. It was a looonnnngggg walk. Our feet still hurt.
• The Terra Cotta Warriors Exhibit at the National Geographic Museum - On the last possible day, at 8:30 in the evening when we were already tired from all of our hiking around town, but it was still amazingly cool. When my father saw the show in Atlanta, he took a few pictures before being told personal photography was not allowed. When he offered to erase the pictures, though, they said he could keep them.

2. We stayed in a B&B in Logan Circle at the Chester Arthur house and it was such a lovely place, Marshall took a few photos of the architecture. We highly recommend the place and the service. Just don't try to drive there late at night in a rain storm.

3. We spent Thursday morning lazing about the Chester Arthur house, resting out feet, and then drove up to Baltimore to see the aquarium again (we'd visited in 2003 before Alex's birth and really enjoyed ourselves) but it was such a gorgeous day that the place was full-up and they weren't allowing anyone else in. So we browsed in the Barnes & Noble across the street for a while (I have to be dragged out of bookstores) and then headed home.

4. The cold/flu/virus thing that had me in bed last Sunday is back today, so I'm lounging in my pajamas still and letting my parents and Marshall do all the work and shopping. I think I overdid it just a little bit tramping around D.C.

5. Bought lots of fun postcards in D.C. Look for them to come to a mailbox near you, soon.

6. So lovely to have my parents here visiting! My mother arrived from VA in Tuesday right before Marshall and I left. She was supposed to catch a transfer train from Philly to Cherry Hill but she missed her connection, so I got a hurried but excellent set of directions over the phone from my father-in-law and drove to 30th Street Station to get her myself!

7. We will have a big Easter feast at Leah's house on Sunday, although my father goes to the airport after church and will miss the dinner. But everyone else will be there and the kids will have an Easter egg hunt.

Jen @ Conversion Diary is taking Good Friday off. Happy Easter, y'all!