Yes, Bentley turned 3 last week. Here is a whole mess of pictures from his birthday:
Bentley tests out his new compound miter saw (guess who picked that one out?) while Kendra looks on enviously
(I personally think that Bentley was as excited about the goggles-- which make him look like Dr. Horrible-- as he was about the saw. But don't tell his very proud Daddy that!)
Craig sets up Bentley's new tent
Fun crawling through the new tunnels
Bentley rejoices because it is finally time to eat cake. I think we ought to have Ode to Joy playing or something...
I can't remember being this excited about anything, let alone cake!
Ready to blow out the candles
My happy three-year-old.
Bentley's newest way to watch TV-- from his tent!
There are more pictures that we took at Grandma and Grandpa's house the next day, but hopefully these will do for now!
Happy Birthday, Bentley! You're my sweet little boy.
Right around the time we bought our house, a little playground was built just a block away. It's been the perfect distance to walk to with the kids and we've enjoyed having it there.
Unfortunately, a few weeks ago when we arrived there, the park had been completely trashed. It was disgusting-- there was lip gloss and mascara smeared all over the equipment, and of course, there was the obligatory gross graffiti (complete with not very accurate drawings of male genitalia). It was so sad. And while we were there, a bunch of high schoolers wandered past us and then sat in the woods nearby smoking. Ick. I was nearly sick about the whole thing (and glad that Bentley can't read yet!).
The next day we went around the same time, and there was a different group of teenagers hanging out who promptly left the moment we arrived. They'd added new, also gross graffiti.
Craig was furious. He declared that as soon as we got home we were calling the Parks Dept. to come and clean this up and we would continue coming by the park at the same time every day to try and chase these punks away.
Of course, we forgot to call the Park Department. But we did go to the park again the next day. As we got nearer we could see that there were a bunch of people standing around, but it wasn't until we gotten a bit closer that we realized that two of the people were wearing blue shirts and black pants: COPS! Apparently we weren't the only ones upset at what was going on! Some neighbors whose yard backs up to the park had been spying on the kids with binoculars, and when they saw them smoking pot, they called the cops. Awesome. I love people like that. Not only did they report what was going on, the neighbors continued watching and were able to tell the police where all the marijuana had been hidden. We got there right as the police escorted one of the kids away. A Park Ranger was there, too, so once things had calmed down, Craig pointed out the graffiti to him and he was just as angry about it as we had been and promised to get it cleaned up right away. He also gave us a direct number to call, should it happen again.
I went back a couple days later, just me and the kids. The graffiti was gone. There were no hostile teenagers. The park is ours again. And I'm happy about that.
I've been talking about this bathroom for ages now. I'm finally showing it to you. We're going to do this tour progressively, so you can see some of the many stages this had to go through, beginning with the obligatory
Before Pictures:
Yup, ugly, ugly, ugly! Right down to the ugly pink curtains...
But not just ugly. This bathroom was also mildewy, moldy, and just gross all around, too!
Um, no the blue toilet (and matching sink) isn't still sitting in our backyard. But if by some chance you want a blue toilet (with matching sink), um, let me, uh, know...
During Pictures:
Craig took the bathroom back to the studs, and then ended up replacing and moving a bunch of those, too!
Ooh, look-- pipes! And a vent which was in the wall, but now isn't!
Amazing how even plain old drywall can look good compared to insulation and studs!
Beginning to tile...
This is the floor heating system...
Craig and his Dad also replaced the window.
And now we have the After Pictures:
This gives you the idea. Yes, it's still a very small bathroom, but now it's pretty! I should explain, though-- the one thing that isn't finished is the medicine cabinet. That will go behind the mirror, so that's why there are two long tiles missing there, and you can sort of see the hole in the wall behind the mirror and the original drywall where it wasn't painted. That will be fixed soon.
I really do love the wave mosaic. And the frameless door.
Standing inside the shower, looking towards the door.
It took three tries to find a sink that was perfect. But I love this sink. And I love the faucet. And I love the granite...
Yeah, pretty much I just love this bathroom. And I'm so proud of Craig for doing such a great job with it. I don't normally fish for compliments, but this time I'm going to be shameless. Isn't this bathroom beautiful?!?!?!
Have you ever noticed how people (self included) try to take ownership of cool things? Especially if you were one of the earlier ones to recognize its inherent coolness factor-- somehow that makes it more "yours" than the rest of the masses. I was just thinking about that while I emptied the dishwasher, and the more I pondered it, the funnier it got. The best example I can give is how I spent years annoyed at the fact that I knew that the song "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen was totally cool long before the movie Wayne's World came out. Somehow that meant that I was way cooler than any of my friends who made the discovery after I did. I felt like that song (and all of its coolness) belonged to me, and everyone else was just copying. Of course, the only reason I knew the song at all was because of my oldest (and very cool) sister Leah, so really I was just as much a copycat as the rest of them.
Leah, meanwhile, is the same one who claims ownership of Johnny Depp because she first thought he was cool back when he was in the TV show 21 Jump Street, long before most people had caught on to what a hottie he was. (And still is, for that matter.)
So! What cool thing did you discover long before everyone else recognized its coolness?
Apparently when Jane Austen was young (a teenager, I think) she wrote a story about a woman who would run around with spells of craziness and have fainting fits and things like that. At the end of the story, the woman fainted at the top of a staircase and fell down the stairs to her death. At this point in the story, Austen brilliantly noted,
"Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint."
Some day when I write that novel, I think that rather than coming up with some wild and creative names for new things, I'm just going to use the words that websites make you type out to make sure you aren't spamming them. I just typed out the word "leptinep." TELL me that wouldn't make a great name for some trippy, sci-fi whatchamacallit!
I am one of those people who loves a good quote. Just a minute ago, they had a nice one at the top of my gmail page (isn't that fun?), and it got me remembering a quote that I had adored from my Modernism class way back in the day. It took a few minutes of trawling through my old college notes to find it, but here it is:
I really do love that. And no, I'm not going to break it down or even try to explain it for you-- come up with your own meaning for it, and I'll enjoy mine!
In the process of looking for that quote, I found a whole bunch of other ones that I had forgotten about, but it turns out that I still love. A lot. I'm tempted to just start writing them all here in list form, but I feel that doing so would cheapen them. Too many great quotes and my eyes glaze over and I lose sight of what any of them are actually saying. So I think I'm going to have to start having more posts that are favorite quotes. Consider yourself warned.
After obsessively reading articles about yesterday's March on DC, I'm getting pretty fed up. Here is a list of the things that are ticking me off:
Why is it that any group of conservatives are always either: a) Mean, rich people, or b) white trash, racist rednecks who just believe whatever FoxNews tells them? I mean, you could hardly be both at the same time, could you? And I certainly don't feel that I fall into either one of those categories. I'm certainly not rich; I can be mean at times, but so are most of the liberals who are writing about conservatives, so I'm not sure I can learn any lessons on being nice from them. I'm not racist. I'm not a redneck. I'm actually very well educated, very good at thinking for myself, and pretty good at trying to understand what the different sides to an argument are. I don't watch FoxNews or any other news, but I read from a lot of different sources on the internet and not JUST Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter (although I will admit that they're my favorites). I don't try to make claims about "all liberals," so could these people PLEASE stop acting like all conservatives fit into one of these two categories?
Next problem: Why is it that no one can figure out how many people were at the rally yesterday??? The numbers I've seen range from 60,000 to 2 million. People, that is a HUGE discrepancy! That would be like me not knowing if I invited three people to my child's birthday party, or 100! Really? NO ONE could get a decent count?!?!?!?! Apparently the DC police don't do crowd estimates, so yes, someone would have to actually look at the people and do some calculating. Didn't anyone do this? Was that really too much work to bother with?
Having been there myself and having attended sporting events with large crowds, I'm guessing that there had to be have been at least half a million people there. We estimated that there were 1,000 protesters on our metro train alone. When you add up all the other metros, people bussed in, and driven in, I think we can safely assume more than just 60,000. Anyway, here's a time lapse video of it where you can see the crowds marching by. Judge for yourself (and feel free to disregard the music. I like this music, but in this context, even I can admit that it's pretty cheesy).
While we're on the subject, though, the New York Times made it seem-- to people who were just skimming headlines-- as though there were more people at Obama's healthcare rally in Minnesota than there were in DC and that is nowhere near the truth. I realize that no one in their right mind (ha, ha) takes the New York Times very seriously any more, but I'm not used to seeing such blatant distortion of facts with which I am personally involved. It makes me really angry.
Finally, a bunch of the articles made it seem as though the people at the rally were being so terrible and unruly because they carried posters depicting Obama as Hitler or the Joker. FIRST of all, that was pretty much all the rage for the media to portray George W. Bush as Hitler, the Joker, a vampire, and even Satan himself. But when conservatives do it, suddenly it's mean and nasty and not showing respect for the Office of the President? I really can't handle the hypocrisy. Second of all, the mainstream media seems to have forgotten that the Nazi party was in fact a socialist party! If what people are protesting is their leader's move towards socialism, then using Hitler is actually a fairly accurate-- albeit scary-- way to draw attention to that.
I myself wouldn't carry a sign like that because it's a bit meaner than I'd like to be. But if you were okay with previous presidents being likened to evil dictators, I'm not sure you can get too huffy when the same thing happens to the guy you like. (And I also think that with the way Clinton used Monica Lewinsky, he pretty much destroyed any hope of the president ever being respected. But that's a different rant...)
For the record, the thing that amazed me about the march yesterday was how good and kind the people at this rally were. This was very accurately described in this blog; if you didn't read any of the other links I included, please read this one. Everyone picked up their trash, everyone was friendly, everyone was happy. That was part of what I enjoyed about being there so much-- these people, to me, are who really make up America. These are the people you'd want as your next-door neighbors. And these are also a heck of a lot of voters.
Not many of the newspapers seemed to be mentioning this fact.
*For my liberal friends out there-- I'm sorry if I'm just making you mad with this post. I realize that you and I actually manage to have meaningful discussions about these things and am very thankful for that fact. Please don't think I include you in this rant-- I'm angry about the very biased media and the (way too) many ridiculous comments people have left on these articles. I still consider you my friends, though. Just for the record.
The numbers I heard were 1.5 million Americans who turned out to make their opinions known to our politicians. I cannot even express how proud I was to be among them. Walking all around DC seeing signs that I agreed with-- what a great feeling!
It's been way too long since I posted pictures of the kids. And to be perfectly honest, I haven't been very good about even taking pictures this summer (pathetic, I know). But here are a few, at least. Some of them are blurry but I still kind of like them, so you get to see them, too. But I wanted to at least apologize first and reassure you that your eyes aren't going bad...
We got a surprise visit from Favorite Aunt Tracy. Here she is inspiring Kendra to want to play piano!
I love how Kendra's little legs barely go past the piano bench!
Bentley thinks the air mattress is a great new toy.
Kendra takes some time to show Aunt Tracy a little of her new attitude. (In her case, it may even be appropriate to call it "'tude.")
After Church, Craig teaches Kendra the fine art of giving Daddy a back massage, and she promptly coerces Bentley into doing the same. How did I get left out of this loop???
Bentley lines up his stuffed animals and then proceeds to sit with them.
Happy boy!
This is how Kendra proves that she doesn't need a nap. Riiight...
Kendra looks smug as she sits on Bentley's stool.
Up close Kendra's hair makes her look sort of like Yoda...
Kendra wearing my flipflops. That's my little girl!
This was the picture we sent Natalie, along with a ransom note, after we accidently stole Samuel's cars. Unfortunately, we said she had to come visit in order to get the cars back, but by the time she came, we'd already lost them. Oops...
...but the Wall Street Journal printed an article quite a while ago (August 11th) that I recently discovered and really liked. Basically the CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc. wrote his ideas about what sort of Health Care Reform he believed would work. It pretty much said exactly what I think about the whole situation. Read it here! And then tell me what you think!
This morning, while I hurriedly fed Kendra her breakfast, she pointed out all the people in the house at the moment-- Mommy, Daddy, Bentley and Grandpa-- and called each one by name. Then I asked her who her favorite person was. I'll be honest: any answer she could have given would have been considered pretty cute by me. But her answer actually managed to surprise me. Her favorite person? "Kendra!"
Ah, well. Points for honesty, right?
It reminded me of the Oscar Wilde quote (and yes, I absolutely adore Oscar Wilde):
"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."
That's my daughter!
P.S. Now I've spent the last twenty minutes reading Oscar Wilde quotes. But honestly! How can you NOT. love. this. man?
Hey, everyone here who is considering coming to the new, improved and revived Book Club this month: first of all, we'll be meeting September 29th at 10:00am at my house. Second, I just got my own copy of the book we'll be reading, Happiness Is a Serious Problem by Dennis Prager. Give me a couple days to read it, and then if anyone wants to borrow it, just let me know. (They don't have a copy at the library-- sorry about that! I should have checked before I chose the book.)
We'll also be decided how we want to run Book Club-- who wants to host it and what books we want to read and stuff like that. So this meeting is really important if you're even remotely interested. And much as it pains me to say this, even if you haven't read the book (gasp!) you really should try to come.
Having said that, I would like to point out that this is a really great book with astoundingly practical advice on how and why we should go about trying to be happy. (I have to say that just in case you were expecting an "I'm okay, you're okay" cheesy sort of pep talk. Not in this book.) Which is, after all, why I chose it. AND, if for some reason you don't like it then that's all the more reason to come to Book Club. That way you can tell me why you didn't like it, and then choose a better book for next month!
For those of you who live far away and are thus not coming: you could always try to use this as an excuse to visit me! I'd be down with that.
I'm very proud to announce that we now have the screen door up over our sliding door, so we can let in some of this delicious autumn air, but minus the bugs.
It's been weird, because on Monday it suddenly turned into Fall. Did anyone else notice it? The temperature dropped about twenty degrees, the nights got cool, and the cicadas have all but died out. The lighting looks all different, too-- shadowy and pretty through the trees (which are still green, thank goodness!). This weather, for all that it feels cool after a very hot summer, is actually perfect Seattle summer weather, and I really do love it.
But for all its loveliness, I have to admit that there's this part of me that is completely dreading the coming of winter and already wants to crawl into a hole and hibernate until spring. Craig keeps reminding me that (a) autumn is lovely, (b) cold weather is a long way off, and (c) even if winter is coming, that just means Christmas is coming, so I should be excited for it. My brain understands this and even agrees with him. But my gut instinct still tells me to hunker down and just try to survive the cold because there is no point in even pretending to enjoy it. Because honestly, people-- who could possibly enjoy being cold? The only up-side to all this that I can see is that my friend gave me a whole bunch of really big, long, not-itchy sweaters, so maybe I have a prayer of surviving this winter without having to be wrapped in my heavy coat and scarf the entire time. And I'm hoping that new sliding door with do something to improve our insulation so the house will be a bit warmer, too.
And I'm getting on the verge of completely obsessing (about the weather-- can I get any more boring?) so I guess this makes me weird. Or possibly I have Seasonal Affective Disorder...
But I'm going off on a very long and rambling tangent. The point of this post was to brag about the screen door. Because not only is it perfect weather to enjoy it, I'm especially proud of it because I PUT IT UP MYSELF. You read that right-- Craig's school had their open house so he wouldn't be home until nine, and I just couldn't let that perfect day pass me by. So I did it. Myself. Did I mention that I did it myself? This may be a first. And probably a last, so I have to live it up. All by myself! (All my many friends who do home projects themselves all the time are probably think I'm pretty lame by now. I don't really mind.)
Go enjoy this great weather! I'm off to Splashdown for one last weekend of summer...
Bentley tests out his new compound miter saw (guess who picked that one out?)
(I personally think that Bentley was as excited about the goggles-- which make him look like Dr. Horrible-- as he was about the saw. But don't tell his very proud Daddy that!)
Craig sets up Bentley's new tent
Fun crawling through the new tunnels
Bentley rejoices because it is finally time to eat cake. I think we ought to have Ode to Joy playing or something...
I can't remember being this excited about anything, let alone cake!
Ready to blow out the candles
My happy three-year-old.
Bentley's newest way to watch TV-- from his tent!
