Goldie Locks Has Chicken Pox

by Lucky Red Hen on November 1, 2008

7YO: Mom, when you was a little girl and you touched the giraffe… did you get green spots or red spots?

Me: Red (and it’s when I was pregnant with her, not so little of a girl, haha)

7YO: Oh, okay. Did they itch or not?

Me: Yes, they itched very much.

(she runs off to her room, pausing at the doorway to turn and tell me something)

7YO: Wait JUST one SECOND (pointing her finger in the air like she just had an idea.)

(she runs further toward her room and paused again, this time out of sight but within ear shot)

7YO: I mean, maybe not one SECOND but maybe ten minutes.

She was back within 10 seconds after finding the book she thought of, Goldie Locks Has Chicken Pox, by Erin Dealey and illustrated by Hanako Wakiyama. Kids have interesting minds.

We will be reading it after lunch :)

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Happy Cocoa-ween

by Lucky Red Hen on October 31, 2008

No, I’m NOT nekid in the reflection.
Yes, I AM waving at you
(it’s customary to wave back)
at 1:18 pm PST on Halloween.
And, yes, I should’ve wiped the stove
down before I took the picture.
Next we fill MY mug with cocoa,
pero and hazelnut flavoring.
The little blonde girl gets only
cocoa and hazelnut flavoring in hers.

She downs her warm goodness with a
peanut butter and honey on whole wheat
sandwich, while stirring in her Tigger mug.
My mug is a handmedown from the 80’s
(thus the country blue heart
and swags of flowers).

Q: Tell me some Halloween fun things…

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Looksie What I Got

by Lucky Red Hen on October 30, 2008

Can you spy with your little eye…
…CJane’s “Enjoy It!”
Look at all the delicious content (and Safeway bag)!
Look how happy she is to be here!
P.S. I’d like to publicly declare that I USUALLY use my reusable grocery bags, but I was in a hurry today and left them in the car. Hubby’s grandparents are coming tonight with my FIL, BIL & girlfriend, SIL & two girlies (her hubby’s at school tonight) in addition to us four. I guess I didn’t need to tell you who all was coming, except that I needed to so I could count how many people (12, and I used my fingers) to cook for (roast & veggies, some in the crock pot with the roast my fav way and some oiled/salted & roasted in the oven sans roast, baked potatoes, Pugliese Bread with mixed greens ala roasted walnuts, apple slices and Bleu Cheese Dressing – don’t you just love spelling it blEU?!? I do).

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Saturday the 18th – Tove PisaRelle, Artist

by Lucky Red Hen on October 13, 2008





Artist’s Reception – Tove PisaRelle
Saturday, October 18th from 5 to 7 pmComplimentary hors d’ouvres + wine tasting with Ray Bloom

I’m excited to help my new friend Lisa with her gallery at Norrgard’s Optik this weekend. If you’re in the area this Saturday night, stop by and see me and meet the artist of the beautiful work you see above!

The gallery does NOT charge a commission to display, show or sell art but instead insists that at least 20% (which is usually a minimum commission) of the art sale proceeds is donated to the local Children’s Country Home (remember I talked about it here). Isn’t that WONDERFUL?

Artist Bio:
Tove PisaRelle graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and drawing from California State University at Long Beach in 2003. She was born and raised in Seattle and currently resides in Kingston on the Kitsap Peninsula. Although her degree focused strongly on the human figure she found her passion in creating landscapes without the human element. Her paintings are derived from her imagination which allows her to fully enjoy the process of painting and her desire to be a part of her finished paintings. Viewers have commented on her work as invoking restful and peaceful feelings as well as the abstract and even a sense of being reminiscent of areas throughout the mid-west and eastern states.

Children’s Country Home

Mission:
To enhance the quality of life of medically fragile children by providing 24-hour healthcare services in a loving, family centered home guided by the values of dignity, compassion, sharing and stewardship.

Children’s Country Home serves as an extension to the child’s own family, providing individualized care for each child. We believe that children should be served in the least restrictive setting possible, and make every attempt to provide an atmosphere that is similar to a child’s home.

The house has bright, colorful rooms, extensive yard and a specialized and caring staff. Families are encouraged to participate in all aspects of their child’s care and staff work in conjunction with the family in planning and treatment.

Contact Lisa Norrgard at 425.485.2600 or lisanorrgard@yahoo.com for more information.

Leave me a comment if you might stop by (or if you wish you could – so that should be EVERYONE, teehee)! I’d love to see you :)

The Gallery at Norrgard’s Optik
17423 139th Ave NE, Woodinville 98072

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Ebonics

by Lucky Red Hen on October 8, 2008

(psst… thanks BruceBruceBruce for the 24-70… here are my first images from my new/used lens)
This boy of mine cracks me up. All. The. Time. And he wants to crack up his classmates. All. The. Time. Because of the latter, we’ve been getting notes from the teacher on a regular basis. His latest offense is sharpening his pencil… he breaks it so that he’ll have to get up and sharpen it. That’s not the problem (so much), but on his return to his desk, he fake-trips down the aisle. Not once, not twice, but three times in ONE trip, causing disruption of the class with giggles and guffaws. That’s my boy, my funny little boy.
So the teacher gives the kids warnings up on the board. You’d think this was embarrassing, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. [For those who don’t know him, I should explain that he’s a gooood kid, not violent, kind and helpful, talks cleanly and is a favorite among his peers and leaders. He’s a sweet boy who loves to snuggle, draw, create and explore.] At a certain point he’ll have to suffer some minutes from recess to stay in class and be put to work (which he LOVES doing) and writes up his own note about his behavior for us to sign and return.
Today’s read (spelling intact):
I owed recess because
I cept draking my pencil
(his b’s and d’s get mixed up).
I think I can improve by
not having to get this sheet ever agian.
(His previous couple notes home read:
I think I can improve by
not doing it agian.)
We’ve emailed the teacher and I stopped by the school and talked to her AND his last year’s teacher to show that we’re committed to nipping this in the bud and finding a way for him to express his personality without disrupting the class and causing havoc for the teacher.
Another funny about him today was his spelling test practice.
Instead of DIDN’T he spelled
DI N’T and I couldn’t help but
go into Ebonics and say
with some sass,
“Oh NO you DI N’T!”
We laughed and he eventually got the proper spelling down pat :)

And this little girl, she just warms my heart. I’m going to have a handful of somethin’ with her later, but so far she’s happy as a clam at 1/2 day kindergarten. As she gets off the bus at the end of her day, the entire bus of her classmates shout their farewell’s and she pops her hand up in the air in a quick traditional princess wave without looking back :)
THIS little stinker on the other hand… she’s REAL cute, but REALLY noisy when she spies something move outside our windows. She’ll perch herself at the back door and tennis-style watch for runners or dog walkers (the occasional horses too) to pass on the trail that runs behind our house. Her freak out bark pierces our ears instead of her intent of warning the passersby. We try telling her that they can’t hear her, but she just won’t listen :p
We’re decked out for Halloween, far sooner than anyone else we’ve seen in the neighborhood. We [heart] Halloween!
I thought this was a funny image… our German armoire that’s stuffed with craft supplies and the rack next to it that houses the leftovers. So many projects, so little time. When I look at this picture, I can see so many stories in such a small, little space. The two bunnies, apron, watermelon fabric, glass rocks, two packs of twistable crayons (God’s gift to mothers everywhere), ME pin cushion chair, Longaberger sewing basket, the purple cup, the two tiny containers on top of the paper storage and the chunk of fabric on the top shelf. Oh the stories.
Hey, look… proof that I [heart] Target too!

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Secksual Deezire

by Lucky Red Hen on October 3, 2008

We have a teenage friend that’s nuts for this shirt from American Apparel. Funny, we had the same shirt when *I* was a teenager. It changes color from hot/warm to cool/cold in kind of a tie-dye sort of way.

However, my curiosity isn’t about the shirt as much as it is about the ad.

In the picture shown, I can’t tell if the person is a boy (stash) or a girl. Maybe that’s their point – it works for both boys and girls… unisex. I think it’s kinda trashy of a picture not only because of the look on the face, but where the hand was that made that face. Perhaps this post makes me look prude, which isn’t really a trait I’m known for or even in my Top 10, but I’m annoyed that it seems advertising keeps getting naughtier and naughtier – especially aimed at the
youth.

When I went to the AA site, the thermochromatic shirt wasn’t easy to find (I had to link from the ad). Instead I ended up seeing magazine covers (h0m0secksually targeted) that are reeeeally too suggestive (and that’s putting it lightly) for a place that’s geared to teens: up-close nekid guy playing the drums, showing pretty much everything but barely covering the actual stuff; woman with a pleasured facial expression, brea$t out and her hand downstairs; guy in small b!k!n! briefs with his hand down his cr8tch, finger in his nose and two hands coming from behind him pinching his nips. These are all COVERS of the mags, not like others that strategically hide the raunchier images between the pages. The product images make me feel slightly like it’s getting close to kittie pron (or that’s their inspiration); the girls look about 14yrs old.

NOW I’m going to date myself, but I remember the days that suggestive reading material wasn’t available at grocery check-out, it was ordered via the mail and came in brown paper packaging; product images were of PRODUCT and not underage-looking grooming-to-be-pron-star girls; if people WERE used in product images, they were smiling and covered; at the stores, the product was shown on modestly dressed mannequins and not 15 foot suggestive pictures (A&F, Vickie’s Secret) that lure you in as you walk by.

I know that it’s advertising’s job to make people want their things, but I wish we didn’t have to keep going down the slippery slope of secksual desire to make it happen. I think the advertising industry is a major contributing factor in the increase of inappropriate secksual desires (ISD). Sure, I am not the barometer of ISD, but my opinion (that can probably be backed up by fact but I have things to do and no time to research) is that this world is dealing with more lewd conduct these days than it did twenty years ago.

Am I the only one that thinks so?

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Insulation (or Lack Thereof)

by Lucky Red Hen on September 30, 2008

Is attic insulation reeeally that important, I say (tongue in cheek)?

Yes, yes it is if you want to be warm and not have outrageous heating bills in the winter. On the flip side, it’d help keep the heat out in the summer too (this house gets hella hot when the temperatures outside rise, and it doesn’t cool down in the night).

We’ve had an estimator come in and give us the heart attack of bids *cough*3+k*cough* (we didn’t realize there was much more the house needed to make it energy efficient), then I had another company come today. He showed up two hours later than I expected (I said 10am, he wrote down noon), but didn’t take long and tried saving us money in the meantime…

Good advice that we can do ourselves:

  • mortise the duct work (matter of finger painting the goop into the crevices of the duct joins)
  • wrap the water pipes with Home Depot stuff (it’s about 99 cents for 6′)
  • pin the water pipes against the studs so they don’t clang when we have the washer going
  • send the 8yr old below to spread the vapor barrier in the crawl space (there’s even a roll already laying down there)

After talking about the bobcats and coyotes stealing his chickens (his lucky red hen wasn’t so lucky recently – may she RIP), he went out the garage door to load up his ladder.

His is RED
with yellow accents
(have you seen my kitchen?)
and I became covetous.

“Hey, wanna trade ladders? I love your red one!” I said with excitement (momma always said it never hurts to ask).

He looked at our less than six month old green with black ladder that is pretty much identical to his and said, “Sure, why not!” and walked out of the garage leaving me a happy girl.

Pretty sure we’ll be fine with his insulating estimate… it’s all about making the customer happy, right?

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Sundays in our Neighborhood

by Lucky Red Hen on September 29, 2008

Saturday is a special day, it’s a day we get ready for Sunday!

That’s what I think of when I think of Sundays. Yesterday was different.

This Saturday I had a full schedule…

  1. family pics in the a.m. (goodbye David, sorry I didn’t hear your talk)
  2. then out to the in-laws in the afternoon to see off the rest of the fam for a Mariner’s Game (they surprised great grandma with tickets – they got some hats, saw a homer & won!),
  3. little shopping for jeans for me (turning out not for me since I was out of luck; I originally put “little jeans shopping” then realized that denotes that the jeans are little),
  4. purchasing maybe outfits for the family pictures for the kids,
  5. a nap because my body ordered one (last week I saw a doctor and did a blood test so hopefully this week we’ll have the results and I’ll quit having to crash during the day),
  6. pick up girlfriends for Women’s Conference,
  7. Volterra Restaurant with four fun Twilight book friends for dinner (Wild Boar for the first time, with beet greens, parsnips and a delicious Gorgonzola demi-glaze)
  8. then pick up Ryan (feels like a brother) so we could hang out with Colin (looks like he could be my brother) who was from out of town here shooting a wedding (sushi at Umi in Seattle – hibachi style yellow fin tuna)
  9. and home just after 1am.

At my age, getting to bed after 11pm isn’t a good idea, but sometimes it’s gotta be done.

I told myself that it’d be nice if I could wake up at 7am to call my favorite camera store (they open at 10am EST, so 7am my time) and adjust my order before it shipped. But seeing that I was hitting the hay sooo late, I also told myself that it will all work out if I didn’t wake up, so I didn’t set an alarm.

Go figure, my body wakes me up at 6:58am to potty and just in time to call the store. I decided to check my email in case they got my change (didn’t yet) and talked to customer service (already shipped – dangit – just refuse pkg when it arrives and they’ll take care of it – YAY i heart them). While checking email, I noticed a Facebook invitation notification and decided to check it out before getting back to bed (normally I don’t fall back to sleep very easily but I was BEAT and ready to hit the hay).

The invitation was to join an “In Memory Of” group for this young man, Tyler Bleyl, a senior in high school.

WHAT?!? He’s my sushi pal? I just saw him in July (when I took this pic with my PnS). WHAT?!?

I laid back down in shock. When I woke up a couple hours later, I was exhausted still. That emotional, groggy, I slept-but-not-really kind of feeling. All I could think about was him, his family, his friends and this sweet girl who would miss her friend. My stomach was in knots and my body was tense. I thought about my own kids as I thought about his mother, my friend, in complete shock and denial.

Church would be the place you’d want to be to reconcile this news, normally. But for me, I wanted to stay home that day around my family… soak it up and ponder about this boy, my friend.

Our church is organized to have a certain geographical area attend at the same time at the same building so that you know your neighbors, can help one another and share the good stuff without having to travel all over the dadgum place. Because of that, when you’re not at church, people notice. They notice then they call to make sure everything is okay.

I received a few phone calls asking where I was. “I didn’t feel like going to church, so I didn’t,” was my reply, trying to be discrete. One friend joked, “I didn’t either but I went anyway.” Usually when I don’t feel like going is exactly when I should be going :)

The last call of the day I changed my answer and explained why I didn’t feel like it… that was nice. Talking about it seemed to purge some of that icky feeling. This friend understood and talked about how sweet life is and how precious we should make every moment.

The other thing that was nice was that people cared. Having a foundation of people who care where I am, wonder if I’m okay and are willing to do something about it if I need it… that’s another good thing about the church I attend. We lift each other up and take turns doing so. Living so close makes it more possible than if we’re spread out.

Going to sleep last night, well, that’s another story and another after 1am one. As I laid there, I couldn’t help but think of the news. Over and over and over until I finally drifted off to sleep.

P.S. Thanks Lyn + kids for stopping by on your walk Friday. It was nice to see your cute faces and visit for a spell. Spell. Isn’t it nice to start using Fall words already? :)

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