1.  Sleep in until 10:30.  Which is really only 9:30.  But still, that’s pretty late.  Except it was totally not my fault because Blaine is painting our bedroom so he unplugged the one clock that we have and when I woke up this morning I knew thanks to daylight savings time that the brightness of the room could possibly be misleading so it was most likely earlier than I thought it was so I just rolled over and went back to sleep and never even heard Blaine leave for church but when he came back home he totally woke me up because the garage door opener is directly under our bedroom yeah maybe moving our bedroom upstairs to the old game room wasn’t such a brilliant move but still thank goodness for the noise because otherwise I might have slept until noon.

2.  Finally drag yourself out of bed, and have two bowls of Cocoa Krispies.  Breakfast of champions.

3.  Complain about mild, annoying headache you have had since yesterday that you still can’t get rid of.

4.  Take two more tylenol after you eat the Cocoa Krispies.

5.  Headache is getting worse.  Decide you should give the tylenol a chance to work by “resting”.

6.  Try to lay down in the den; kids are fighting.  Try to lay down in the living room; dogs keep licking you.  Try to lay down in master bedroom; Blaine is painting again.  Give up and lay down to “rest” in Kendrie’s bedroom.

7.  Wake up two hours later.

8.  Still have headache, worse than before.  Who said naps are restorative? 

9.  Take two more tylenol, sit around holding forehead in hands, complaining.

10.  Realize you are starving and eat the leftover FABulous lobster-tomato-tortellini you cooked for dinner two nights ago.  Let your children eat Oreos for lunch because there is not much tortellini left and quite frankly, you don’t feel like sharing.

11.  Realize you are still hungry so eat half a tube of Bacon Ranch Pringles.

12.  Not as good as regular Pringles, by the way.

13.  Complain you still have headache.

14.  Have the light-bulb go off when you realize that you haven’t had a soda since Friday morning.  Clearly, this is a caffeine-withdrawal headache.

15.  Drink a damn Coke.

16.  Oh my heavens cue the angel music its a miracle the headache goes away.

17.  Curse yourself that you didn’t realize that sooner.

18.  Start preparing the fixings for the grilled burgers you are making for dinner, in anticipation of a lovely family dinner. 

19.  Not until the cable guys come, because the television in the living room suddenly quit working yesterday, do you realize that you are still in your pajamas and bathrobe from this morning.  Because in between the eating and the napping and the tylenol taking, you clearly didn’t have time to get dressed today.

20.  Give up when the burgers are ready, the french fries are ready, and the veggie tray is ready and the cable guys are still here, with no idea why the television has no signal.  Let the family serve themselves and eat off their laps watching Hannah Montana in the den.  So much for quality family time around the dinner table.

21.  Laugh at Blaine when the cable guys discover that not only did he unplug the alarm clock in our bedroom when he started painting yesterday, he also unplugged some kind of cable extension box thing and that’s why the tv no longer worked.

22.  Admit exhaustion from …… well ……… from all the ……….. ok, so you haven’t actually DONE anything today, but admit exhuastion and lie on the sofa for a while.

23.  Realize headache is coming back.  Consider getting another soda, although that will most likely start some vicious headache rebound cycle from Hell and do you really want to subject yourself to that?

24.  Hell yes you do.

25.  Ask Blaine to make you a soda because you are just too tired …. what with all the napping you’ve done today.

25b.  Discuss with Blaine how this is Spring Break and you feel the need to get the kids out and do some fun activities, instead of sitting around the house for the next five days watching tv and playing on the computer.  Because clearly, today hasn’t been so productive, so perhaps a change of plans is in order.

26.  Watch the last fifteen minutes of Undercover Boss and wish you had seen the beginning.

27.  Decide its time for bed, but because you are still wearing your pajamas from last night, and not having to change shaves ten minutes off your bedtime, so you get on computer and update blog instead, with most boring list in the history of the universe, about all the things you have NOT accomplished thanks to daylight savings time.

28.  The end.

1.  Yes, definitely darker.  I was tired of messing with the roots growing out, and wanted to cover the gray better.  I told my hairdresser to make her best guess as to my natural color.  No idea how close we are, especially considering the older I get, the darker it gets.  Can you believe I was a natural blonde when I was in elementary school?   I know blondes usually go dark as adults, but this dark???   Already want highlights again.  I look like a zombie.  A pale, goth zombie with very dark hair.  But hey, at least a zombie with fewer gray hairs.

2.  Blaine actually has always preferred short hair.  Mainly he gives the generic “whatever you want to do is fine” reply when I ask, but honestly, short hair is what he likes best.  Plus he was tired of listening to me bitch and moan about how long it took to blow dry and flat iron.

3.  Although ironically, I find shorter hair more work.  It might be quicker, but it has to be done every day.  With long hair, I can wear it down, or in a ponytail, without having to mess with it more than once.   I’m lucky that its not naturally greasy, so I can skip washing it several days in a row, when its long.  Now, I’m faced with actually washing and styling it every day ………. good grief, what was I thinking?

4.  No, I left the ponytail with my hairdresser.  Hopefully she knows of the other options for donating.

5.  No real reason, except I wanted a change.  I do this every few years, and wonder why I did it, then grow it back out again.    Then cut it again.  So either I like change more than I realize, or I’m very masochistic.

6.  Honestly, I should have gone either a few inches longer, or a few inches shorter.  Its at this length where it hangs down inside my shirt collar and itches my neck.  I keep trying to flip it back over my shoulder out of habit ….. so in the next week or so I need to decide whether to go shorter, or immediately start the growing out phase again.

7.  The only real comment I got from the kids came from Kendrie, interestingly enough.  I was looking at pictures from hairstyling magazines the night before I was getting it cut, and had a photo of the (very short) cut that I really want, but don’t have the courage to do.  Kendrie said to me, “You can’t cut your hair that short, you’ll look like a boy!”  Once I got over my astonishment, because hello, isn’t her hair cut just like a boys …. ??? …. she then continued with, “and people will think Dad is gay!”

More importantly, how long before I stop reaching up there, wondering where it all went?

Before:

After:

For the record, although I did print out the Locks of Love donation sheet, when my hairdresser put it in a ponytail and cut it off, it wasn’t the required 10 inches needed to donate.  Not sure how many more inches wound up on the floor, but it did make me sad that the first cut probably wasn’t enough.

One season ends, and another begins.

More specifically, in this case, soccer season.

Running, dribbling, passing, (hopefully) scoring ….

A older division, a larger playing field, more players on the field at the same time, and new rules, like offsides and um … other things we don’t understand yet.

The bigger field means we need to become better at passing, and not playing cluster-ball as much.  We’re back to practices twice a week (which is good, since our twice-a-week basketball practices are over and what on EARTH would mom and dad do with all that free time?!) and new players on the team gives the girls a chance to make new friends, which is always nice.

But most importantly …. the burning question …. most pressing of all ………

Do you think its too soon to put Kendrie and her friend Katrina on human growth hormone therapy?  Look how short they are compared to the team they are playing against …..  I guess its a good thing she likes soccer, and doesn’t have her college dreams pinned on a basketball scholarship.  (sigh)

One of Kellen’s favorite book series is “Gregor the Overlander”.  Its a set of stories about a boy who accidentally falls through a NYC laundry drain (?) and discovers an entire under-world, where people live, and compete for survival, with various animal species.  Warm, cuddly, smurf-able animals, like rats, mice, cockroaches, scorpions, spiders, snakes, etc.  Many of these animal are human-size and can communicate with the humans, although pretty much every species’ survival depends on them carving out their own space in the underworld, even if that means fighting the other species to the death with their bare hands.  Or claws.  Or stingers.  Or whatever.

Very warm and fuzzy, no?

Kellen, well, he got a wee bit obsessed.  It started out innocently enough.  His second quarter book report requirement was a diorama and he chose this book, so we bought a few plastic animals, grabbed a shoe box, and he went to town.  He’s always been one for staging ginormous battles ….. when he was younger it was legos, blocks, and army men, then he got into Gormities (sp?).  He loves Risk, and after reading Gregor (reading the series twice, I might add, for fun) and seeing how much fun he had staging the diorama, he convinved us to take him to Party Bazaar to spend the bulk of his allowance money buying dozens more creatures so he could recreate the scenes in the book. 

I suppose some people might think that’s silly, especially for a boy who is almost 12, but personally, I love it.  Beats sitting in front of the Nintendo all day, playing video games, if you ask me.

The only problem is, he doesn’t quite understand why I am not equally as fascintated.  He will stage elaborate battles, and ask me who I think will win, or who I think will come in second, depending on strategy and location and fighting ability.  We must dissect in great detail the strengths and weaknesses of the animals and the Underlanders …… rats have claws, but not all rats are as vicious as Ripred. Do I think the Bain is fierce, or pathetic?   Do I understand that the cockroaches are not as lazy as the other species think they are?  Does Photo Glo-Glo bug me as much as he bugs Kellen?  Do ants have an advantage since they outnumber everyone else?  Surely bats have the upper hand since they can fly above the battles???   I’ve read Gregor, yes, the entire series.  And I enjoyed it.  But how do I explain to my son that I DO NOT GIVE A FLYING RIP WHO WINS THE FIGHT — ANY OF THE  FIGHTS.  

Especially when THIS is the view each morning as I sit down to breakfast???

The good news is after a week or so, the animals will go back in their rubbermaid bin, and won’t be seen again for weeks.  Or even months.  Until Kellen gets another urge to stage an Underlander battle.  Then he’ll drag them out and start all over again.

Remind me again, what I have against video games???

Since moving over from Caringbridge, and then Blogger, and now to this Wordpress blog, I’m suddenly the lucky recipient of spam.  Not the canned meat variety, but the comment variety.  While I don’t really remember getting much spam on the other blogs, I do here.  Quite a few, each day.  In fact, some days I get more spam comments than I do “real” comments, which is a tad bit depressing. 

Do I really need to know where to buy meds cheaper than anywhere else on the planet?  Especially viagra and cialis?  Which I’m not even sure if I spelled them correctly??

And trust me, I don’t need artificial turf on my blog.

Or where the best online gambling sites are?

Since I don’t read Russian, those comments are pretty worthless.

And I really don’t think my penis needs enlarging, but maybe that’s just me … dainty and delicate.

Most spam comments are easy to figure out, wanting me to click over to a site to buy something.  I love the WordPress feature that identifies these comments as spam and keeps them from going through ….. delete, delete, delete.  But the other day, I got one that even I don’t understand:

“The woman must bear children and the man must be tattooed”

That was all it said.  From a tattoo parlor, yes, but what is that part about the woman must bear children?  Sounds fairly primal to me.

So I’m sharing, for fun, but rest assured ….. delete.

You really need to go here.

And read all the way through, then watch the videos, because that is the cool part.  Well, no, the cool part is this family, period. 

Way to go, Eammon and Declan …. hope you raise tons of money!  (although you sure won’t have to spend any of it on shampoo for a while.)   Ha!

Kellen and his cousin Landon played in the same basketball league this winter, but their teams were in different divisions.  Kellen’s team was exactly where it should be ….. they won about half their games.  The majority of the games they won, they won by a fairly close margin.  Same for the games they lost.  No one got discouraged, no one got over confident.  It was a good season, overall, a fair balance of winning and losing, against teams of the same skill level.

Landon’s team, well, bless their little hearts.  Last year they were ranked in a division that was too easy for them and they won all their games handily.  Like, by 20 or 30 points a game.  And while it’s always more fun to win ………. well ………. even winning can get old when its handed to you on a platter.  Plus, do you really learn anything when you rout every team you play?  So this year his team got bumped up, but perhaps a division too high.  They were on the opposite end of the routing spectrum, and got soundly thumped, pretty much all season.  Equally not as fun.

For the end of the season tournament, Kellen’s team got bumped up one division, and Landon’s team got placed down one division, and guess what?  As was probably inevitable, the boys wound up playing one another.  And if I might say so, having a jolly good time doing it.  Several of the boys on Kellen’s team, and all the boys on Landon’s team, go to school together.  It was a hoot to watch them smack-talking one another across the court, with grins on their faces the whole time.  Don’t get me wrong, both teams played to win, and it was one heck of a good game, but it was played in good spirits.  Hands extended to help up players on the other team, slaps on the back for the opposing team, and parents in the stands rooting for both sides.  Really, if every game, in every sport in the land could be played like that one, there would be a lot more kids, happy to play youth sports, and a lot less reports of parents going after one another with fisticuffs in the parking lot.

“Get out of my way, cuz …..”

“Oh, yeah?  You’re going down …..”

Except that clearly, Landon understands the concept of the block-out better than Kellen does.

“So you really think you’re man enough to guard me?”

“Oh, I KNOW I’m man enough ….”

Except notice they are both smiling the entire time …..

“I’m taller.”

“So?  I’m tougher.”

“I told you, I’m going to guard you.  Get used to it.”

“Really?  ‘Cause where I’m from, we call this dancing.”

“Well if you insist on dancing, then I’m going to lead.”

“No, *I* get to lead, I’m taller.”

“Who cares?  I’m older!”

“By a measly six weeks!!”

“Fine, then I’ll just grab your shirt and hang on and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“I will slap you like the girly-girl I am, you just watch.”

“You know, this is an awful lot like how we play basketball in your driveway.”

And they still smiled, the entire time.

And the dance starts again.

For the record, Landon’s team was ahead.  And then Kellen’s team was ahead.  And then Landon’s team was ahead.  And wound up winning by three points.  Although I should probably never be glad that my son’s team lost, I must confess, I was.  Because now my nephew’s team advances forward in the tournament, and must play again on Friday a team they played last week.  A team that played so rough, and so ugly, that one of the boys on the other team not only fouled out, but was EJECTED from the game.  What kind of eleven year old gets EJECTED from a basketball game … and not only that, but with the encouragement of his parents in the stands???  As punishment, he was forced to sit out the first game of this tournament, and will be coming back for the first time, to face my nephew’s team again.   Honestly, Kellen’s team has had such a great time, that is NOT how I’d want to end the season.

I am perfectly happy to move on in the lower bracket.  Because guess what?  The team we are playing later this week, also has boys from our school on it.  Boys who stayed to watch part of our game last night, and were cheering and razzing both sides equally, in good humor.  Something tells me that game will be almost as fun as this one was.

And I’m reminded, once again, of the reason we moved home.

Not the best picture, but happy to be cousins, nonetheless.

Because really, not just anyone can take photos as good as this:

Honestly, including someone’s HEAD in the photo is highly over rated.  Why should I settle, and be like everyone else?  I think cutting off the heads could be my own unique watermark.

And why worry yourself over something as silly as FOCUS? 

Don’t you agree?  Focus is highly over rated ….

In fact, photos that are off-center, out of focus, and poorly lit?  Why, that’s practically ART.  Clearly, I SUFFER for my craft.

Who am I kidding?  I’m not taking the blame when Sports Illustrated wants nothing to do with me.  I’m blaming the REF.  Get out of my way, Stripe-y …. you’re interfering with a GENIUS at work.

…. because I really can’t think of anything else to talk about.

(this is what happens when your mom is in charge of ticket sales and she makes you go early and pose for pictures before any of your friends have shown up …..)