Blends With Savanna Grasses

Ever have one of those days where you wake up, look in the mirror, and think "What the heck happened to me!" Well, that happened today...

What's left of my hair just decided to do it's own thing without any consultation from me. You know, it's funny but Katie Jo used to have hair exactly like this when she was an infant. Anyway, somebody tagged me so here are my response.

First: Tell five things about yourself that others don't know.

1) I have only been in love twice in my life.

2) I cannot tolerate a zit. If I see a big ol' zit on a friend who refuses to get ride of it, I have to fight an urge to hold them down and take a pair of tweezers to them.

3) I am both shy and outspoken. I can talk to an audience of 3000 easier and with less anxiety than a one-on-one conversation with someone I don't know.

4) I've frequently have an odd urge to a) jump off from an unprotected, unrailed high place when I'm on a unprotected, unrailed high place, b) drive with one tire on the road and one tire on the sidewalk, and c) jump with both feet into the air and then down into a big rain puddle.

5) I LOVE Barry White music.

The next tag:

1) What were you doing 10 years ago?
I was falling madly back in love with Kelly after a tough spell during the summer.
2)What were you doing a yr ago?
Swimming in a huge sea of work trying to keep my head above water, but I remember it was a really good Christmas and everyone had lots of fun.
3)What are 5 of your favorite snacks?
I'm trying to lose some weight and build some muscle, sot that has an impact. But I'm snacking on fruit smoothies, nuts, foods that are low on the glycemic index (cheese, apples, etc), and rice cakes with all kinds of "acceptable" crap on them like fat-free chicken. My favorite snacks are another matter - nuts, chips (esp Cheese Puffs & Doritos), Oreos, ice cream (esp Heath Blizzards), and chocolate (esp Cadbury Mini-eggs).
4)What 5 songs do you know all the words to?
Soul Meets Body (Death Cab for Cutie)
Shut Up and Kiss Me (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
Drive (Incubus)
Somewhere Only We Know (Keane)
Holiday (Green Day)
5) 5 things you would do if you had money
Cultivate the garden and forest of my dreams
Buy unlimited 1st class tickets for all of mine and Kelly's family
Travel
Get a top-drawer nanny and housekeeper (and no, they wouldn't have to be hot Swedes)
Learn to speak at least one foreign language by total emersion
6) 5 bad habits
Procrastinating
Not being nice all the time
Napping
Breaking eye contact when talking
Mumbling/speaking too quietly
7) 5 things I love to do
Garden and landscape
Read
Write
Learn
Play with my kids and tickle them!
8) 5 things I would never get new, buy new, or wear again
A car
A Rolex
A pink suit (or even a peach suit)
Knee-high athletic socks
A snakeskin bikini thong (but I would wear a zebraskin one!)
9) 5 favorite toys
Laptop
Palm Treo 650
Sirius radio
Blogspot
Leafblower

Now, I'm supposed to tag 5 other people. But all of my friends on here have already been tagged and I'm just too lazy to go through all of my comments to find people I don't know as well.

Well, ok - it's not HN at all. It's Anna Lynn showing off her frightening Tortilla Face, not to be confused with Leather Face of TX Chain Saw Massacre fame.

Scary eh?

Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder (OCD) - It seems like we've all got it to some degree or other. I recall that one friend of the family can't leave the house for anything without unplugging all of the hair dryers, curling irons, clothes irons, etc - TWICE!

My dad could never stand to allow a telephone cord to be tangled. No matter what he was doing, he always had to stop and untangle the cord. And that is even true when we were at restaurants, auto garages, grocery stores, wherever! And you have to remember that I'm talking about pre-cell phone days here, so every phone had a cord.

My manifestations of OCD aren't so striking or obvious, but they do creep up every now and then. Now that Kell has moved out of the house, I think they might be a bit more pronounced since she doesn't keep me in check. Here's an example - I was doing some laundry, folding stuff and putting it up. I was working on towels and after putting them up in the closet, I turned to switch off the light. That's when I looked at the towels and realized my OCD had unconsciously kicked in.

Can you see my weirdness?

Do you want to confess to any? (grin)

Cheers,

-Kev

Yes, my son is becoming more manly by the moment. He's had a little greasy Latino-looking mustache thing going on for a few months and I'd been pestering him to get in front of the sink to take care of it. Well, he finally went to work on it. He did pretty good for his first time with no nicks of any sort.

Remember how exciting it was when you first got to shave? You felt so adult. It was kind'a like that with driving too. You couldn't wait for any excuse to get behind the wheel. "What's that mom? Need some more Tic Tacs? I'm on my way!" But like so many other of these rights o'passage, shaving too will one day become drudgery. But until that day - enjoy it m'man!

One other note about the D'man. I have to tell you how proud I am of him! He already amazed me by being the only male freshman to ever make it into Mt Juliet High School's Men Of Vocal Excellence (MOVE). Topping that, he went to the All-State vocal competition and won FOURTH IN THE STATE!!! And that was despite a full blown case of bronchitis earlier in the week. Dylan - you rock!

I finally got to hear m'boy in action at the MJHS Christmas Choir Program. Although there were tons of other kids up there, he did great and there were plenty of times where I could hear his voice soaring over the others. And he also played the bongos for one song. It was kind'a cool hearing him play them because they were a gift I brought back to him from one of my trips to Europe. It was wonderful to hear.

Cheers to you,

-Kev

...comes in through the roof at my house!

Yes, we had another dreaded bathroom toilet leak last night.

Y'see, this is actually the good Lord's way of keeping me humble. I'd been feeling pretty good about the job I'd been doing as Mr. Mom lately. None of the kids had been late to school, missed an appointment, went hungry, or lacked for clean clothes, towels, or linens. I was starting to feel, well, that I had a bit of control over the domestic agenda. But the Lord likes to keep us from getting big heads, so he sent this specific tribulation my way. Here's the story...

We'd had a very full and busy day. After church in the morning, where Anna Lynn's best friend Zoe had turned her head into multi-megawatt static electricity generator, we headed out for a day of adventure.

There's not too much true adventure to be had with a cadre of little girls, so that meant Green Hills Mall and the best Santa in town. A quick detour home was needed to get some anti-itch medicine for Anna Lynn and to give Dylan a buzz and pick him up from his buddy Ian's house.

We got some fantastic pictures. (Hehe! You'll probably be seeing those as our Christmas cards.) But sadly, I can't read the disk they burned for me with the JPEG files on it. So I can't post the picture(s) here until I rescan the photo though I'll put one down that I took with my phone.

All of my kids are fantastic. I know that because I stood in line for 45 minutes and watched the behavior of other people's children. Thank you God for these kids! Emily happily entertained Katie Jo and Anna Lynn and lots of other kids by drawing with them. And when KJ or Anna would get bored, Dylan would liven things up with some rough and tumble. They had a ball and made the time in line go pretty fast.

(And I have to give credit where it is due. Emily and Dylan have been a big help in general lately.)

Can you see Anna Lynn's facial features through Dylan's shirt? They really had a lot of fun playing. They were cracking me up along with everyone else in line.

After Santa, I took the kids for their first Cheesecake Factory experience. The food there is good and the cheesecake is, of course, fan-freakin-tastic. Now I've been to a half-dozen Cheesecake Factories around the country and some how NONE of them have less than an hour wait - even at 4:30 in the PM! Grrrrr....

So when we finally got home, Dylan rushed up stairs to his bathroom and promptly clogged the Mt Juliet sewer and septic system with an 18' 7" turd anaconda named Wallace. The kids toilet upstairs, for some reason, fills very quickly. Consequently, when it overflows, it only takes a couple minutes to have 2" of water in the bathroom. (Note that I have indeed turned down the water pressure on that toilet!) Anyway, Dylan, Emily, and I swung into action. I fixed the toilet (and had to wash my hands about 30 times afterwards). Dylan sopped up the water. Emily placed bowls strategically to catch all the drips. And I also had to rush Katie Jo and Anna Lynn to my bed so they wouldn't be awakened by dripping anaconda water.

On the other hand, an interesting sidebar here is that ceilings make great water filtration systems. The leaking water upstairs was not, ahem, very clean since Wallace didn't willingly vacate the premises. However, the water that collected in all the bowls downstairs was crystal sparkly clean. I saved some for you if you want to give it a taste test. C'mon, you know you wanna!

So our efforts prevented a potential catastrophy. But now, I had lots and lots of new towels and bowls to wash. Thank you, Lord, for reminding me of my place in the world - up to my elbows in ickiness with hampers full of laundry awaiting.

Despite all of the excitement, I have to say that it was a wonderful weekend.

Cheers!

-Zebraman