Specialization is for insects

This afternoon, I was reminded of a quote that flew around the internet a while back while The Princess was laying out her carefully designed plan of seven careers:

"Daddy, I want to be a famous clothes designer, a famous ballerina, a famous car painter, a mommy, a famous artist, a house painter and a famous story writer."

Yep. looks like this one is on track for a liberal arts degree. We better start saving now, so that we can afford to have her move back home after college.

See, I told you Rule Number 1 was a good one.

It is more than a year after the fact, and Rule Number One has only need a minor revision. The Kids and I took care of finalizing the details today while in the car on the way home from School.

With that, I give you the new, and improved Rule Number One.

Rule Number One - Don't be an idiot.
Rule Number One, subpart a - Don't eat the meatballs at a furniture store.
Rule Number One, subpart b - No tickee, no washy.

And that pretty much covers every eventuality that has come up in the past year.

I will say that I still feel that Rule Number One covers EVERYTHING but the kids are insistent that Rule Number One gets an overhaul.

Let's try this a different way

So one thing I am learning every single day in the classroom is the importance of presenting new information lots of different ways. The idea is that each kid learns new stuff a little differently, so if you give lots of variety in the way you present stuff, then eventually most of them will catch on.

Yeah, so that is the way it is supposed to work anyways.

So with that in mind, I have decided to try a new approach to this whole blogging thing. You see, I like facebook because I have been able to rediscover lots of friends for years ago that I thought I would never hear from again. But I always feel a little limited in what I am able to share. Some of that is a result of the way facebook (and twitter even more so), limit the AMOUNT of content you can share at one time. Now I have been accused of lots of things, but never have I been thought of as a "man of few words". So this space limitation is tough on me.

I also try not to share some things because of the mix of people on my friends list. I know most of them. And I even like many of them. But (and looking at my friends, it is a big butt!), sometimes I just want to think about a subject before I share too much about it. So with that in mind, I am going to start blogging occasionally ABOUT my facebook posts. Because I am too tired to think of anything more creative, I'll tag these posts as "facebook further". I now present you with the first installment:

From just a few minutes ago,

Sitting here watching the kids while they watch STOMP Live. I bet the house is going to be even louder in the next few days. Especially since we bought them all new drumsticks a few weeks ago when we were at the music store.

A few weeks ago I decided on a whim to change to strings on my acoustic guitar. In the process I broke one of the bridge pins. So we headed over to Guitar Center to buy some pins. The kids weren't too excited until they got tot he drum room. They spent about half an hour banging away in there. When we left The Boss Lady grabbed a couple of sets of real drumsticks out of a clearance bin.

Since then it has been a little more rhythmic around here. I occasionally hear some pounding beats coming out of each bedroom. No wonder I noticed a few new dents in each of the bunk-beds this week. With this showing of STOMP Live, I assume those dents are just the first wave. In fact, as we are finishing up the movie, The Talker is sitting on a giant exercise ball and drumming his heart out.

And from a few days ago,

Helped serve dinner for 25 on Monday night. Cooked dinner for 50 on Tuesday night. Helped teach a cooking class this afternoon at work. Followed all of that by whipping up spaghetti for 3 tonight at home with a ton of help for the 6 year old chef-to-be.

Hoping to not see a kitchen for a few days.

Lately we have been incredibly busy. I am realizing daily how much I loved our simple, uncluttered life with one income and a much less busy schedule. Most of that was bound to go away, as the kids get older and more involved in sports/dance/music/art/whatever. But I am still trying to wrap my little brain around how quickly and dramatically things have changed for our whole family.

A side story that I was too ashamed to put on facebook: we ran out of milk last Monday. Neither The Boss nor I had time to get to the grocery store until Saturday. The store is less than a 2 mile round trip from out house. I used to walk up there. But it truly was "that kind of week". As we get this figured out a little better, then we can plan a little better. But until then, we are jumping around putting out fires as the pop up.

Which reminds me, we are out of milk again. I should have time to grab some on the way home of Thursday. Oh wait, I have to cook for another meeting that night, so maybe Friday...

Right.

Granny wuz here

The Mother of the Bride was here for a couple of days. So she got to be the first guest to sleep on the new guest bed that serves as the lower, full sized bunk in The Talker's room. I walked in to tell the boy "goodnight" and I was immediately met with a schnoz full of TMotB's perfume.

Thinking that we could change the sheets quickly before bedtime, I said "It smells like your grandma's perfume in here." The Talker quickly responded "Well, that is because I just took off my socks."

I have no idea if he actually heard what I said. But his response seemed appropriate enough, so I left.

Busy little Lions (and Mustangs and Falcons)

Life is busy as I ever feared it would be, with two kids and two full-time jobs. I'll be the first to admit, I still haven't made a full adjustment to being this busy. This weekend is a great example.

The Talker's football team (The Falcons) practice at 10 this morning, followed by a game at 11. Luckily they are right down the street from Torchy's Tacos, so life isn't all bad... But by 10 am I had already driven the Princess and her two cousins out to my high school so that they can all participate in the school's Cheer Day activities. The entire lot of us have to go back out to the school for a performance at 2pm.

We are skipping at least one birthday party to make all of this happen. Or else the day could be even busier.

Added to that, that there were 4 kids in the house, awake and playing before 6. Goodnight Nurse!

Off to football. Maybe I can catch a nap over there.

The kind of days Grandma warned me about

Austin is a great place. Everybody knows that. And if they don't know, then they haven't been here yet. If you are going to live in Texas (and why wouldn't you?) then Austin is THE place to live.

All of that is especially true in the Fall and Spring. It is hard to believe that a month ago we were still dealing with 100+ degree daily temperatures. But today we have a low of 45 and a high temp of less than 80. Not a cloud in the sky and it is NICE! out there. All of that is even better because it should stay like this all week long.

I have heard days like this called "Chamber of Commerce days" because this is the type of stuff you advertise on your website to convince companies to do business in Austin. But my Grandma had a different outlook on the beautiful weather.

She was a lifelong Austin-ite and evidently she liked her weather mild and also kept secret. And she liked her city small. I remember one gorgeous day about 20 years ago she stepped onto her front porch to greet me and she had a scowl on her face.

"Nice day, right Granny?" I asked.

She replied without hesitation, "I don't like it. this is the type of day that makes people want to move to Austin." Touche'!

So if you happen to be lucky enough to visit Austin during this awesome time of year, don't get any wild ideas about settling in for too long. My Granny is watching out for people like you.