Marital Bliss

Yesterday we had some friends over. Because I had waited until after Dwight woke up to take my shower, I took advantage and spent a few minutes doing some extras like drying my hair and putting on make-up. When I finished up and went downstairs, I asked Dwight if my makeup was over the top. I could tell by his reaction and the way he said, "You look nice" that he wasn't completely sold on it. So I pressed him a little (typical wife) and he said, "Well, I'm just not sure about that blue stuff you put under your eyes."

Me: "Umm, that's not makeup, that'd be the bags under my eyes."

25 Random Things

This was posted to Facebook on January 21, 2009

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1. My answers to this will never be as articulate and interesting as Jonny’s answers were.  Story of my life.  I’m always in awe of the people I’m surrounded by.  Danny was an incredible athlete from the get-go and, for example, started climbing to the tops of trees as a toddler.  Ted is amazing at fixing things and always has been.  He always had the Frankenstein of computers!  Jonny has a fascinating mind.  At the age of like 5, or maybe even younger, he would stare at the encyclopedias for hours.  The fact that he couldn’t read didn’t seem to stop him from absorbing information and to this day he’s a wealth of information.  I have great faith in the stuff he says, though I really shouldn’t because he’s also a masterful BS-er.

2. When I was three years old my parents took off for the “mission field”.  I was very excited to be moving to Africa and would enthusiastically tell people that we’d soon be doing so -- even six months after we’d arrived.  Apparently I didn’t consider it to be the real deal because I hadn’t seen all the animals I was expecting to see.  Someone eventually set me straight, though I think they had difficulty convincing me.

3. As a teenager, I was so pleased to have participated in the filming of a scene for “Gorilla’s in the Mist”.  I can’t recall if it was a one-day or two-day experience but I do rememberl that I felt like I had been paid handsomely (though I can't remember exactly what the amount was…somewhere in the range of $20-$40).  I was excited to meet Julie Harris, Bryan Brown and Sigourney Weaver.  I’d never heard of any of them but I was star struck nonetheless.  They were all very nice to me.  (And then I watched “Aliens” with my friends.) 

4. When I was in middle school, my two favorite boy’s names were Brett or maybe Brent and Alan.  I’m not sure where the Brett/Brent came from but the Alan was from Alan Trammell (short stop for the Detroit Tigers).  I liked to watch baseball with the men of the family and was a die hard Tigers fan when they won the pennant in 1984.

5. Now my favorite sport to watch is basketball and my favorite team is the Dallas Mavericks.  One year Dwight and I were watching an NBA game (probably the playoffs) and he mentioned that Dirk Nowitzki reminded him of my brother Jonny.  The next year we watched the playoffs again and I remembered Dirk because of Dwight’s comment.  By the time the Mavericks met the Heat in the playoffs, they were my favorite team.  Dwight was rooting for Dwayne Wade...the Heat won and the Mavs lost.  But I’ve been rooting for them ever since.  And now I watch every regular season game that I can.  Go Mavs!

6. I’m the second oldest of 27 cousins, on my Dad’s side of the family.

7. In college my claim to fame was an internship at the White House.  I worked in the personnel office…I wish I could remember the name of the person I worked for.  I had some cool experiences but the best was an impromptu pep rally for Al Gore.  That evening he was going to debate NAFTA with Ross Perot we all gathered in his office and surprised him to wish him luck.  

8. The craziest adventures of my life were in France with my roommate, Monika.  I hope I never forget them, though I’m a little scared to put some of them in print for fear my children would find them later on down the road.  *hehe*  But one of our best adventures was when we hitchhiked to Schaffhausen, Germany with two other people.  We split up into pairs and took off one Friday afternoon after school got out.  The guy who knew where we were going was in the other pair.  Moni and I had an address and a phone number…and of course this was before the days of Mapquest.  We never were able to reach anyone on the phone so we were incredibly proud when we arrived on the lady’s door step in the middle of the night.  We walked the last couple of miles and we *still* beat the other pair by several hours.  

9. The three most significant boyfriends in my life are all friends with each other (a friendship which has nothing to do with me).  My brother's groomsmen were all either my ex-boyfriends (including one hubby who is an ex-boyfriend, right?) or my siblings. *mwa ha ha*

10. I’m still a little teensy weensy bit afraid of the dark.

11. I’m pretty organized and I’m really good at finding stuff.  My husband is always amazed at my ability to retrieve things – even his things. 

12. I regret not trying out for the volleyball team in high school.  No guarantees that I would have made the team, particularly since I transferred to SVA as a junior, but I regret not trying.

13. My most enduring hobby is photography.  I became interested in photography somewhere around the 4th grade.  I started out with really crappy cameras but I still treasure those early photos…partially because no one else was taking pictures in my family so that’s all we have.  I’ve also always had a passion for documenting the details of my life.  I’ve kept journals off and on over the years...I would write pertinent information on the backs of the photos.  Scrapbooking always appealed to me.

14. I’m a bookworm but I pretty much only read for entertainment…unlike my husband who pretty much only reads for enlightenment.

15. I had a crush on Dwight long before we ever dated.  I have a photo of him that I took in late 1992 that I showed to my (aforementioned) college roommate in 1995.  We officially started dating in August of 1997.  Ahem…during that five-year stretch I had 3 boyfriends and countless little dalliances but all the while I was gradually getting to know my eventual husband.

16. I’m so sad that I didn’t save my e-mails from GMU when I graduated.  I had never deleted my e-mails from Dwight and I would LOVE to re-read them now!

17. Which of course leads to the most embarrassing experience of my life when Dwight grepped his name in *my* e-mail account.  I had mentioned to Dwight that I used Pine at GMU and had told him some commands I knew so he acted like he was impressed.  I probably got a big head and played that up a little.  One day when he fixed my laptop for me (I was *sooo* impressed that he fixed it and it only took him like 5 minutes, even though the IT guy where I worked had taken it home for the weekend and accomplished nothing, but I digress), we connected to my account at GMU to test it.  He said, I’ll teach you a cool trick.  I was all excited about that so he types “grep dwight”.  To my horror, suddenly all these sentences started scrolling up the screen and when I realized that it was every mention of him in any of my e-mails, I shrieked the threw myself in front of the computer screen.  So, so embarrassing.  And that’s how Dwight became 100% sure that I liked him.

18. My life has pretty consistently been a pendulum: I’m the one to end a relationship, i'm the one to get dumped; I go to a school I like, I go to a school I don’t like; I have a reputation for being wild and crazy, I have a reputation for being a total prude.   What’s up with that?!

19. Speaking of breaking up, I’m the *worst* at breaking up.  ‘Nuff said.  

20. I’m so *not* a musical person.  I’m terrible at remembering lyrics.  I’m not super choosy about genres…probably because I just tune it all out and get caught up in my thoughts.

21. I have a hard time falling asleep and I require a lot less sleep than my husband.

22. I’m a list person.  I write everything down.  I love my google calendar and have many different calendars (and then I usually have them all turned on so I can see them all at once).  I try to keep track of the funny things my kids say at my blog.

23. I’ve replaced a MyFamily.com addiction with a Facebook addiction.  I’m also addicted to e-mail and check it obsessively throughout the day.

24. I only talk to one person regularly on the phone but we can talk for copious amounts of time on pretty much any given topic.

25. I’m not good at ending phone conversations.  I feel like I drag them out forever and am driving the other person – who surely wants to be off the phone – crazy.

And there you have it.  25 random facts about moi.

ROAR

Yesterday I was playing dinosaur with the girls. I was Mommy Dinosaur, Kiersten was Baby Dinosaur and Annika was Big Sister Dinosaur. We sat around roaring at each other with Mommy Dinosaur smooching on the little dinosaurs. We've played this game before...Kiersten loves dinosaurs. So when I put Kiersten to bed several hours later she said, "Goodnight Mommy Dinosaur" and I said "Goodnight Baby Dinosaur". We went through the same routine a little later when I went back up to fulfill some need that she had. :) ANYWAY...the cute part is that when I went to get her this morning the FIRST thing she said was "Good morning Mommy Dinosaur!" At least *I* thought it was cute.

A few minutes ago she crawled onto my lap and wanted me to sing Rock-a-bye Baby to her. So I sang (and Annika accompanied me on the drums). Then she said that she wanted to sing to me. "Rock-a-bye Mommy in the tree top..." *So* cute!

Kiersten is into dinosaurs, Oskar is into Space (he wants to be an Oskar-naut) and Annika...I guess she's into princesses. After I typed that sentence I just said, "Annika, Kiersten loves dinosaurs, Oskar loves space...what do you love?" She responded, "I love princesses Mommy." Oskar informs me that he loves "strong rangers that are good" too.

I'm down here in the basement trying to get cleaned up (AGAIN!). Oskar is generously letting me borrow his computer for a sec. :) That boy is OBSESSED with his computer. Seems that he's going to be following in his Daddy's footsteps. Okay...must go take the roof (a.k.a. a blanket) off the fort so that Kiersten can get to the treasure chest (a.k.a. the dress up container).

Eggs-actly...

The other day I was cleaning up after breakfast and got distracted. First there was a phone call that lead me into the computer room and then I was IMing back and forth with a friend trying to help her out. When I walked back into the kitchen, this is what I found.



Yep, Kiersten had discovered that eggs can break and it's oh so delightfully messy.

Kiki says...

"Will you help me wrong way?"

How Kiersten asks for help putting on her shoes.

Lala Says...

How Annika spells her name:

A-N-N-straight line-K-A

Grandma Van Belle

I've been thinking about things that I wanted to blog about...but with my Facebook addiction to tend to, I never get around to it in a timely matter, and then I forget what I was going to write about. Although...I think my few loyal readers are all on Facebook anyway so I think that's why I haven't worried too much about staying current here. But let me see if I can remember any of the things I wanted to write about.

I got home from Michigan yesterday. I had a really nice visit at Aunt Barb's house. I loved being able to just enjoy the kids and not worry about much else. I played with them on the beach, in the water and took them for a walk around the canal. Although we only went to the playground and then came back because Oskar informed me, "my bottom is worned out".

Other amusing things they said:

When we were walking around one of the sand bars in the lake, Annika was looking at the rippled sand and said, "Mommy, is this a zebra?"

While we were working on our second sand castle, Annika asked me to build some steps. I built some miniature sand castle sized steps and then some Annika sized steps. Oskar said, "Build me a ramp, Mommy so that we can bring a stroller."

I've been remembering Grandma a lot. Mom and I shared a lot of funny anecdotes and memories during our trip together. Grandma was such a character. That's the word I always come back to. We were laughing about how Grandma always had various different cases that she'd lug around with her - several briefcases loaded up with papers of all sorts. She was forever collecting clippings. She'd have a case for jewelry, a case for make-up. Come to think of it, I'm a lot like Grandma.

Grandma used to give us rolls of quarters and then she'd discipline us by taking away a quarter. If Danny and I would run to her with a squabble she'd tell us that if she wanted her to arbitrate, we'd each have to pay a "court fee" and then we'd have to accept whatever decision she came up with. This was usually enough to end our disagreement. We didn't want to put our money where our mouth was!!! :)