What Makes Me Feel Young

They say that smell is one of those things that can take you back. No one forgets the smell of a crayon or the smell of freshly cut grass on a warm summer day.

For me, songs work the same way. I can hear a song from long ago and suddenly I'm transported to the past. Luckily the only songs that seem to do this are ones associated with happy memories.

Here are some of my favorites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKUBTX9kKEo

The Who "Baba O'Riley" - this reminds me of hanging out at Mary Sue's house (yes, I had a friend named Mary Sue - how 50's). They had a cool pool and horses. What a great place to be when you're a young teen aged girl.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6h0Od2F1wk

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons - Marge and I spent many hours singing into our brushes listening to these guys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQTRIrFmL94

Orleans - "Still the One" combined with M*A*S*H - Does it get any better? This clip combines high school and college for me.

Now my poor kids will have to listen to oldies for the rest of the day. Luckily they don't seem to mind - they probably just think it's funny to watch me dance around and sing.

Shopping and Kids

Lately the princess hasn't been willing to let me leave her sight. I had been in the habit of leaving her with her brothers so that I could go to the grocery store by myself. This cut the shopping time in half, and cost less since I didn't have any little people asking for food and saying that they were starving to death (even though I'd just fed them).

But, since returning from vacation, the princess has been uber attached to me. Today she actually threw a fit insisting that she needed to come with me or she'd cry. I decided to dig in and told her that she absolutely was not going to come with me. In the end we agreed that if she stayed with her brothers (without crying) while I went to the warehouse store, she could come with me to the grocery store.

The teen reported that she'd been good, so the princess got to come with me. I also needed to run a few extra errands, so it was a long trip. Every time she got naggy I just reminded her that coming with me was a privilege reserved only for the best behaved children, and she settled down.

It still took a lot longer with her in tow than it would have taken without her, but I reminded myself that it wouldn't be much longer that she'd actually want to come with me and I let her pick out new yogurt. Isn't it nice when children are still young and sweet enough that picking out yogurt flavors is a treat? And besides, she put on her nicest dress and brushed her hair. How could I say no?

Knit and Glo

A year or so ago I got the bright idea that if I could find yarn that glows in the dark, I could knit things like moons and stars and they would glow in the dark and my kids would be thrilled. I even found yarn, but it was very expensive. So that plan was abandoned.

In the Sunday adds, Michael's advertised that they had Glow in the Dark yarn on sale, so I went to check it out. The skeins are pretty small (less than 200 yards), but the idea that I could knit something that glowed had me willing to make do.

Currently I'm almost finished making the princess a pink glow in the dark scarf. This should come in handy if it EVER gets cold here, and she is outside in the pitch dark (after spending at least five minutes in direct light). What will really happen is that she'll spend time running back and forth between the lighted bedroom and the dark bathroom so that she can watch her scarf glow.

My suggestion for the smiling child was to make a stuffed animal that glows. He thinks that sounds cool, and is currently deciding what type of small stuffed thing he'd like. I'm hoping he picks a bunny, because that is a very easy pattern. With my luck he'll want some complicated thing for which there is no pattern.

The middle child will probably want a knitted something related to fencing. But there is no fencing/knitting projects. I'm thinking of combining the glo yarn with some regular yarn and making him an illusion something. I'm thinking that an illusion scarf with a skull would be way cool. Of course, my other color would probably be black, not pink.

The teen isn't into knitted things. He has his big afghan on his bed. He doesn't have a hat, but it is so rarely cold here..... I'll have to do some thinking.

I got started on the new scarf for my MIL. It's a beigey color and very soft. Hope she likes it. Last Christmas when she opened the slew of knitted dishcloths I'd made her (she always swipes the dishcloths I knit while driving to her house for visits) she got all excited and thought it was a shawl. Expecting/hoping for a shawl and then seeing a bunch of dishcloths is apparently quite a letdown. So this year, she'll get a shawl.

Why We Didn't Go

Juniper Pollen

Ragweed Pollen

These lovely pollens are making me miserable. I just couldn't bear the thought of being in the beautiful outdoors and feeling like I might succumb at any moment. For some reason (probably the extreme lack of rain) my allergies are much worse this year. There doesn't seem to be a concoction that helps much. So, we took the trailer back to it's home away from home, and resigned ourselves to trying another weekend.

The teen had his braces adjusted on Thursday and isn't feeling too great, so he was more than happy to stay home this weekend. The smiling child and the middle child were still itching to go, so the man I married took them to an outdoorsy festival. They'll be shooting, fishing and paddling all day. They'll arrive home this evening tired, dirty and sunburned; but it is the best we can do. If they'd gone camping, they'd have also added mosquito bitten, but this will have to do.

The smiling child didn't want me to tell the princess where he was going; he was afraid that she'd want to come and that would ruin the "guy" day. Since she's been in a "I need to be with mommy" mood lately, I knew that I could tell her the truth and she'd still want to stay with me. I was right. She's excited to have a girl day (she knows that the teen will just want to hang around the house anyway) and is already planning what color we'll paint our nails. I might even pull out the hidden stash of "fairy dust" and fill her with glitter!

Wish me luck - I still haven't gotten the glitter out of her hair from our visit to the mouse, and we've been home for three weeks.

Camping Plans

We bought a trailer at the worst possible time (probably why we got such a great deal). It was summer, it was hot, it was a miserable time to be outside. So we parked the trailer and waited.

Now it's finally time to go camping again. The weather is lovely. The man I married and I decided that we should go camping this weekend. The reservations have been made. But (insert whiny voice here) we don't want to go camping - we feel yucky - it's too much trouble - what will we eat?

But we're tough, the man I married and I: yes we are. We're going camping this weekend. I'll pack lots of allergy medicine. We'll have fun. We won't whine.

I'm sure that the reason it seems like so much trouble is that we've only gone camping once. And that time was VERY hot, and the campground was really not much more than a parking lot. We pretty much spent the entire time inside the trailer playing games. The only outside fun was watching the park rangers catch a stray dog.

To make life easier on this, our first trip, I've decided that I won't even try to pack food. We'll set up camp and go to the nearby WalMart and shop. The kids love to have bacon for breakfast and we can get by for two days on hot dogs and sandwiches.

We're taking the dog too. Last time he got a bit (a bit?!!) nervous and wanted to sit in my lap the whole time. I'll give him a bath tomorrow so he'll at least be clean when he sits on my lap. We can give the bird some extra food, so he should be fine.

Hope we still remember how to do everything. If you see us looking confused, please feel free to help us out.