A little paint here, a lot of drywall there....

Disclaimer: This photo isn't actually our house, so don't panic. No matter how much I joke about it, we didn't really tear it down!

When we first bought our house 4 years ago, we had lots of plans for it. It's a 5 bedroom, two story brick that was in relatively decent shape. The previous owners had some pretty weird taste (ask me about the nuclear yellow bedroom sometime or the peptobismol pink striped, spotted and flowered wallpaper in the dining room if you need a good laugh). My husband is pretty handy, so he has been doing all the repair work himself. But since he works full time (and engineers work a lot of overtime), his free time to do the work on our house is limited. So for the past 4 years, several rooms have actively been under construction at our house. We're making progress and I'm proud to say we almost have the lower bedrooms and the dining room the way we want them. But it's been a lot of hard work. Some days, I tell my husband we ought to just knock it down and start from scratch. I think it might actually be easier.

Back to nature....

As a kid, I was always one of those people who wanted to pet every animal I encountered. I thought they were all cute and furry and just needed love. Nevermind that some of them probably would have bitten my arms off. They needed love, and darn it, I was going to give it to them.

Flash-forward to today, and I am a lot more leery of animals. I still like to put food out for the birds, and I feed not so desirable fruit and veggies, etc., to our deer, squirrels, chipmunks, bunnies and a family of groundhogs we have living under our shed. But I no longer have the urge to pet them. I know better.

A few weeks ago, we discovered we had a raccoon in our neighborhood. We'd seen it out at night a few times. It hadn't really caused any trouble, so we ignored it. But yesterday morning, I saw it out, wandering around the yard, into the neighbor's yard and down the street----in broad daylight. Raccoons are nocturnal and don't like to be out during the day unless they are really desperate....or rabid. I hated to do it, but I called animal control. They have yet to come out, but hopefully they can help this little guy. If he's just hungry, they said they can trap him and relocate him to a more suitable area. If he's rabid, though, they will have to put him down. Poor furry creature.

Just who are we training here, anyway?

We've been working with Connor to try to get him potty trained, not only because we're tired of spending tons of money on pull ups, but also because we just feel he's ready. But admittedly, it hasn't been going very well.

Yesterday, we got out the egg timer and put him in real underwear. That took quite a bit of coaxing to even get him in the underwear until he saw that daddy had underwear just like that (minus the cool racing car on the back, of course). Then he was all for it.

We told him we were going to play the potty game. We told him every time the egg timer went off, we had to run to the potty and sit on it. It worked great all morning. At around 10:30, he even pooped and peed on it! He also peed on me, but it's not really his fault. Note to potty seat manufacturers: make the pee guards on those things just a tad bit higher, would ya?

We were pleased with his progress and thought maybe this time it would actually work, that he'd actually be interested in using the potty. Then it happened. At around 2:30, he was sitting at his little table eating his snack. I went into the kitchen and returned, only to find him sitting in a huge puddle of pee. He wasn't even phased by it. He just sat there, eating his snack and smiling away. So much for the potty game and hoping that being wet in real underwear would make him want to use the potty more. At this point, I think the only people being potty trained are me and my husband.

Sucking you dry.....

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm really starting to get weary of all the excessive fees being charged by everyone from airlines to hotels and restaurants. Want to bring more than one change of clothing with you on vacation? OK, sure. That'll be $25 per checked bag, please. Need a hotel room and want to book online? Sure thing. That'll just be $10 process fee for online services, please. But these aren't the only businesses robbing us blind.

Today, I logged onto my bank's website with the intention of doing a little online banking to pay those pesky bills that have been piling up. Instead of getting my usual log-in page, I get a disclaimer, asking me to click yes to agree to be charged $6.95 a month to be able to use bill pay. Now, I've been using the service for a year, and it's always been free. Now, all of a sudden, without notice or warning of any kind, they want nearly $7 for the privilege of paying bills online. I don't think so. Our bank charges us everything from monthly account fees for not having their insane minimum balance of $5,000 in our account, to $30 a piece a year for the privilege of having MAC cards. Now they want me to pay to use online bill pay? I don't think so. The most frustrating part of all of this was when I called to speak to the manager about it, she tried to tell me that I must be mistaken, that I couldn't have possibly been using online bill pay for free. It's always been $6.95 a month. I faxed her my online bill pay paperwork, and she still insisted I had to be wrong. It's bad enough they want to rob me blind with all these fees, but now they are telling me I'm an idiot, too. I hardly think if I hadn't paid my bills for a year that someone---the gas company, the insurance company, the phone company---wouldn't have tried to collect on me by now. But still, I must be mistaken.

I did a random check of other area banks, and none of them (save PNC, which is not my idea of a real bank anyway) charge for online bill pay. So I called my bank back and told them enough was enough, I was finding a new place to store my money. They didn't seem to care. What a shock. Maybe if I had a few thousand dollars in their bank it'd get their attention....or maybe it'd just get me more bank fees.

If you want to find something, stop looking for it.....

When I was still single and unhappy, people used to tell me all the time that if I just stopped actively looking for someone to love, Mr. Right would come along. I laughed at those people. But ultimately, they were right. After many failed relationships and a few scary, scary dates with people that quite frankly scared the ever-loving poo out of me, I pretty much gave up on dating. Then I met my wonderful husband.

I think the same principle must apply to other things as well. I've been searching for a new preschool for my son for months now. I recently became disenchanted with his current one for reasons I won't go into on a public blog. Let's just say I'd rather poke both my eyes out then send him back into their care.

I think I've looked at about 20 preschools in the last 2 months. All were OK, but none really jumped out at me as the place I wanted him to be. And most of them were insanely expensive. I had pretty much resigned myself to the possibility that he wouldn't attend a preschool next year when I stumbled on a really great place. I was googling the name of a church to check its mailing address for a story I was working on, and the first thing that came up was something called The Preschool Place. I was like "hmmm, wonder what this is?" So I clicked on it. Here, it was a preschool located at the church. I looked at their website, their curriculum, and the staff's credentials. And I was wicked impressed. The director has a master's degree in special education, and the staff have all been there for more than a decade. They all also have their teaching certificates, many with certification in childhood development and special education. I didn't even hesitate. I filled out the online registration form and applied on the spot. I just felt like God was pointing me in the direction of this place, and I had better listen.

Two days later, I got a call that my son was accepted and that he actually got the last open spot in the 3 year old class! They invited us down this morning to see the facility and see if my son would like it, and he loved it. I was so impressed with how organized they were there that I almost did a cartwheel. So come September, my son will be going there. We're both excited about it.

So just remember....no matter what it is you're looking for, stop looking. Before you know it, it'll be starting you right in the face.

Prince Caspian rocked!

So we went to see The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian on Saturday to celebrate our anniversary. Five years of wedded bliss, but that's a post for another time. :)

Anyway, we saw the first installment---The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe---- at the movies and liked it so much we decided to head back to see this one. And I must say, the film makers did an excellent job with it. It can't be easy to adapt these books into movies. The books are so detailed (and long) that it makes it hard to decide what to cut and what to keep. Even with some information left out, the movie was still 2 hours long. But it moved quickly and you don't realize how much time has passed. The young actors, who resumed their roles as the Pevensie children and kings and queens of Narnia, are excellent once again. And Ben Barnes, who was tapped to play the role of the title character, was excellent. I see he is already in production for the third installment, which is Voyage of the Dawn Treader, set to be released in 2010.

The only warning I'll issue about this movie is it simply may not be appropriate for kids under, say 10. And 10 year olds might be a bit disturbed with the battle scenes in this one, too. The entire movie is much darker overall than the first one, and the battle scenes----of which there are many----are pretty intense. I noticed a lot of kids 5 and under in the theater and thought it was just too much for them. So keep that in mind if you plan to take your kiddos along. It might be best to just read them the book for now and rent the movie when they are older.

I would love to see each and every one of the books in this series made into movies, but I'm not sure that will happen. But for now, we'll take what we can get!

No kids allowed!

In my nearly 3 years as a mother, little phases me when we're out to eat with our son. However, yesterday really took the cake when we went to Applebee's for Mother's Day lunch.


Connor was a little tired, so he acted up at first. But one time out in the car was all it took, and he behaved himself. The most he did was stand on the booth so he could look around, and played peek-a-boo with a lady at the table next to ours on the upper level. I let him do it for a bit, then made him stop. Even though she seemed to think it was cute, I didn't want him being a nuisance. Anyone who has kids this age knows they can get on people's nerves in no time, especially people who don't have kids. That's why we always choose a kid-friendly restaurant. If they have a kid's menu and high chairs, we assume they are kid friendly. I should have remembered the wise advice of my former journalism instructor: "When you assume, you make and ass out of u and me."

We had barely started eating our meals when our waitress came over and asked us if we wanted dessert. Now, the place was hardly busy, so I couldn't see why she'd be rushing us. So I told her no, we were still eating, we'd decide later, thanks. She came back about 4 more times asking the same question before I got a little testy and asked her what the problem was that she was rushing us like this. She said that since Connor (who was sitting eating his sandwich at the time) was so fussy, she thought we might want to have our stuff boxed up so we could leave. Even my husband, who usually is not very quick to catch on to this stuff, realized she was politely asking us to leave. I was more than a little upset. I told her no, I did not want my stuff boxed up, but I did want the check. We paid and left. And guess who didn't get a tip?

I'm not sure I'm going to let this go. I think a call to the manager is in order here, but I wanted to wait until I was a bit more calm before I did it. Had I done it yesterday, I'm afraid I might not have been able to use all my nice words when talking about it.

But just a warning: if you have kids, avoid Applebees. Apparently, they only pretend to be kid friendly.

Beauty all around us..........

"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority."
E. B. White
US author & humorist (1899 - 1985)

This tree is in my front yard, and every year at this time, it blooms with these beautiful pink flowers. But if you blink, you'll miss them, as they only last about 3 weeks before they fall off the tree.

Even though I've seen this tree every spring for the last 4 years, it still takes my breath away every year when it blooms. Its beauty just sneaks right up on you. I just wanted to share it with you all before it's gone again until next year.

Tea and tears......

So my son had his Mother's Day tea in preschool this morning, and boy was it cute! We knew they were doing something special, but the teachers really went out of the way to make it a nice morning for the moms.

It started off with each of the children giving their moms a white rose as we entered the room. Then, we were seated at a table where the kids had made special place mats for each of us. Mine said "Connor's Mom" and had hearts on it. The kids made them and the teachers laminated them. Very cute. Then the kids served us cake and punch, and sang us some songs. They also gave us gifts they had made. They decorated a little wooden box that had our pictures on the top. Inside the box was a shrunken version of their hands. The teachers had used shrinky-dink paper to trace their actual hand, then shrunk it down. The kids put them on a necklace with beads. So cute! I think I cried so much this morning that I might have used an entire box of Kleenex. Being a mom is so cool.

Fish, anyone?

So, my lovely sister, in her infinite wisdom, decided to buy Connor two goldfish on Friday while she was babysitting him. I left, we had a cat. I came home, we had a cat and two gold fish.
For those of you who don't know, we tried the fish thing last year. I got Connor a Beta fish. We named him Sid Fishious. And the darn thing lived just long enough for me to get attached to him. Then one morning I found him floating in the top of the tank. He'd turned completely white and was dead as a door nail. So he had the traditional burial at sea. Connor didn't ask much about him after that, thank goodness, because a 2 year old just doesn't quite understand death no matter how you try to explain it.

The last thing I wanted was another fish, let alone two. But here they are, Vern and Shirley. While I have somewhat gotten over my initial irritation at my sister buying them without even asking me first, I am not over the fact that these darn fish are the dirtiest animals I have ever owned! They poop SO MUCH that I have had to change the water in my filtered tank 3 times since Saturday. THREE TIMES! GAH! Does anyone know if they make diapers for fish?

This is one time you may not want to breathe deep.....

While I was exercising this morning (imagine the irony of that), I heard on the radio that Pittsburgh is number one for being the worst U.S. city for short-term particle pollution. I must admit, I immediately stopped breathing.

It's great to be number one at some things, but I think it's safe to say this isn't one of them. The news report said it was the first time a city outside the state of California ranked number one for this type of pollution. Way to go Pittsburgh! Not.

Apparently, other states and their cities have taken steps to reduce pollution, which is part of the reason why they are no longer ranking above Pittsburgh. I hope our city officials can follow in their footsteps and start to clean up our act around here. It's time we start protecting our environment not only for our health and safety, but for the future of our children.

If you want to read the full story, here's a link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24400776/?GT1=43001