Taking the Scenic Route

I laughed my butt off at icedsoychai’s blog

It talks about Dance Mom Cliques….I really laughed because that is so true of the mom’s in the local Y, where I park my POS car next to 2004 Lexus and Mercedes and workout next to people in $300 workout clothes.  The people I really feel sorry for are the women curling and hairspraying their hair in the locker room before they go to their yoga class.    How shallow & insecure of a person do you have to be to care that much about your hairdo in a yoga class.

It really is an amazing mix of people at the Y….people from the nicest neighborhoods in the city, people from low income housing, the super skinny Barbie doll people, people that make me look like a super skinny Barbie doll person (lol…at 250 lbs, no makeup wearing, 2nd hand store wardrobe, that is really saying something), and in every age range, including the 90 year olds that can outwalk me any day.  I think one of the most unusual sights is working out next to muslim women in a full hijab and dress on the treadmill.  That sort of took me back the first time I saw it.  I am used to see Muslim women around (actually, some of our favorite neighbors are Muslim…it is one of the only neighbors I am comfortable with letting my ds play because the kids are so gentle and kind to Zane), but I was sort of surprised to see them in that context.  I don’t know why I was so surprised, I am used to seeing Amish doing “normal” things, and it sort of disturbs me that I would be so surprised to see a Muslama woman doing “normal” things.  I guess it depends on what you are used to seeing.

The alphabet according to Zane:  A-B-C………K-L-Mama-N-O-P……Z

edited to add some pictures from the 4th

Taking a break from his puzzles to be our little charmer

Wow… this book should include my dh’s picture on the front cover because it fits him SO well.  I am also a visual spacial learner, but not quite to the level of Zach.  It looks like Zane is heading that way too.   His favorite things to do are puzzles and drawing and he has late verbal development, all signs of this style of learning.  It was weird reading this book because a lot of the things we thought were “normal” are things that are NOT normal for the general population, but very typical of VS learners.  I knew my thinking process was different, but this book explains how.  Just a spectacular book for anybody who knows a VS learner, or people just interested in learning theories.  (and there is the psych major part of me that really likes reading about different ways we think)

Oh, I sooooo wish I had money!  Tomorrow night Kerry and Edwards are going to be in Kansas and I don’t think we have gas money to go see him.  He is all the way over in Lawrence, a 2.5 hour drive from here.  He is going to make a stop at 11:30 pm.  Yeah, that is pretty late, but we are night owls.  Kansas is pretty much a waste of time for a candidate since we hardly have any electoral college votes and they are pretty much always republican.  So, it is nice to see that he is stopping anyway, even if it is late.  It is so frustrating to live in a state where it would take a miracle for your vote to count.

George Bush words of wisdom for today:

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we,”  ~George W. Bush, 8-5-2004

Did you do a double take too?  He actually did tell a room full of Pentagon officials today that he never stops thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people.  A little Freudian slip, eh? LMAO!!!

I am really enjoying reading wemoon’s adventures in building a home from nothing in the wilderness.  An entry a few days back was about outhouses and I had to chuckle at her comments.  My mom grew up using an out house more regularly, and I grew up using it mostly in the summertime when I was a mess from being outside. Some things I learned:

1. keep an old sears catalog in there.  toilet paper melts when it rains.
2. grab some velvet leaves if you can, much softer than catalog pages
3. as soon as you sit down, grab a catalog page and start crinkling it up to make it softer and more toilet paper like
4. keep the door CLOSED when not in use or critters will get in there, including cats, and they can fall in the hole and there is no way to get them out.
5. check for critters when you get in there to make sure you don’t have unwanted company
6. sit carefully….splinters in the tush are not fun.  (I don’t remember this happeneng, but I was always afraid of it happening)
7. if it is not secured into the ground, on halloween, the high school kids will come around and try to tip it over.  (this and dumping hedge apples on main street seem to be the main activity of h.s. boys around here on halloween).  I remember my dad going out and yelling at the kids and them speeding off the time they tried it at our farm.

Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, “I’d like my crayons back, please.”

link for more thoughts on creativity

I made it back to the gym today.  Yeah for me!  It was a few days shy of a month according to my workout log.  I can’t beleive how hard it was for me to go back and I am proud of myself for doing it.

Much to our dissapointment, dh doesn’t have a GTA position in the fall.  He is high on the list, so if somebody drops out, there is a good chance he will be the replacement, but that doesn’t really help right now.  He has an appointment with career services to critique his resume.  Of course, we can’t complete the resume until his grades are all in so he has an accurate GPA…hopefully the profs will get their act together and get the grades in soon.  Also, even though we are eligible for more financial aid through Sallie Mae, the school has a cap that is 6K/year lower than what we are eligible for…that SUCKS.  So, today sort of stunk financial news-wise.

In politics, they are considering a national tax and eliminating the IRS.  Zach wrote an entry about it.  My first thought is that it would put a lot of CPAs out of work.

Zane has been in a good mood today and that has been really fun.

ok…this is freaky.

When Zach handed Zane a sippy of green juice, Zane grabbed it and says “What’s that?, sips it, and says “oh, juice.” 

last night he came to me and said [let's] “get up and have fun”.  He has also used the words up and down while demonstrating the words. 

I almost can’t believe my ears.