Row, row, row your boat

Back in college Mr. Crackers was on the University's crew team (rowing team?). He often recalls his time on the team fondly and has shared many memories with me over the years. When I think of rowing teams (crew teams?) my mind has always immediately turned to that classic 1984 film Oxford Blues starring Rob Lowe. And while Mr. Crackers & I did not attend Oxford University in jolly old England, our college was located in the the town of Oxford (Ohio). The movie reference may help explain why, even though Mr. Crackers & I did not know each other yet back in those college days, when I picture him rowing (crewing?) a boat, I always picture him looking just like this:

Mr. Crackers love for boats with oars did not stop when he graduated college. Although he never joined the Atlanta Rowing Club, he often talked about it. So, on one fateful afternoon while driving through the north Georgia mountains, it came as no surprise when Mr. Crackers pulled the car into the parking lot of a canoe and kayak outfitting store. Admittedly though I was a little surprised when we left the store 30 minutes later with our very own (gently used) red canoe strapped to the top of our SUV.

Our friend Karen, who was with us on that fateful afternoon, took this photo when we got home with our new prize. You can see the pride & joy clearly evident on the face of Mr. Crackers can't you? You can tell he was ready for many canoeing (rowing?) adventures in our future.

Thankfully north Georgia was full of lakes and rivers, so Mr. Crackers and I (and our two dogs Max & Sadie) did have many fun times on the canoe. Although I will tell you that I will never again get in a canoe on a lake crowded with jet skis and ski boats on Labor Day weekend. I have never been tossed around so much in my life. I have learned that for me canoeing is best either on placid lake waters or on gently running small rivers.

But once C was born back in 2002, we never got in the canoe again - not even on a placid pond. Thankfully we were smart enough to realize that small active toddlers & canoeing were not a good combination.

So when we moved to Ohio back in 2004, we left the canoe behind in Atlanta with our friend Karen and never gave it a thought again. Or at least that is what I thought, until Mr. Crackers began talking last fall about how fun it would be to go canoeing as a family now that the kids were older. I kind of nodded my head and said uh-huh until I realized how serious he was. He wanted to plan a trip down to Atlanta to retrieve our old canoe from our friend Karen who was ready to finally get it out of her garage after 7 years.

While making our plans to get the canoe my biggest recurring question was always, "Where are we going to store it?" If my memory served me correctly, I remembered that the canoe was pretty large and I knew that our garage has got to be one of the smallest 2 car garages in America. I mean the thing just barely fits our 2 cars inside. In fact I can't even get into Mr. Crackers car if it's parked inside the garage. He has to pull it out in order for me to climb inside the vehicle.

In answer to my question, Mr. Crackers would just smile at me and say, "Don't worry, I've got it all planned out." Since Mr. Crackers is an idea man (as evidenced by his many past projects) I figured he had some plan up his sleeve, so I took his advice & didn't worry about it... for awhile. Until the next time I tried to figure out where the thing would go and I'd ask him the question all over again.

We headed down to Atlanta last week and the trip was really fun. We saw some good friends, had a blast showing the kids around the city we called home for almost a dozen years and after our trip was over, we strapped that canoe back on the car & headed home. After 7 years, we were once again the proud owners of a (gently used) canoe.

Once we got back to Ohio, Mr. Crackers began executing the plan he had hatched in his mind all those months ago. It involved hanging the canoe from the ceiling of the garage. It also involved many, many trips to Home Depot as he revised and then re-revised the plan a few times.

Pulleys, moving straps, heavy ropes, giant hooks, and a big red tarp were just some of the items he used trying to bring his plan into fruition. I tried to cheer him on during the day, reminding him of all his past project successes - but after spending one entire day trying to get his system to work, he shook his head, looked at me & said, "I don't think I'm going to get this to work after all."

Honestly, I was a bit relieved by this news. The longer he worked at it, the more I could picture the canoe breaking free of it's restraints and crashing down on our cars... or even worse on our kids. While I felt bad that he had tried so hard & hadn't gotten his plan to work, I felt like maybe we had dodged a bullet.

We talked briefly about some other options, including storing the canoe on some kind of stand outside the house. Little did I know that the next morning he decided to have another go at the whole garage ceiling system again. After another 2-3 hours of work he called me out the garage again. I thought it was to review a new plan he had, but instead it was to try to help him raise the canoe to the ceiling again. It was at that moment that I decided to air my concerns to Mr. Crackers. You know, the concerns I had about the canoe coming crashing down on our cars....or children.

To Mr. Crackers extreme credit he remained calm as he stared at me somewhat incredulously. "This might have been something that you should have shared with me a little sooner. You know, before I just spent 2 days working on this." he very calmly replied.

He was right. I should have spoken up sooner, but I really wasn't sure what the storage system would involve until he had spent quite a bit of time on it. I was trying to be supportive, cheering him on while all the time worrying about potential canoe disasters (as Mr. Crackers would tell you, I'm somewhat an expert at inventing things to worry about.) And honestly, he had spent so much time on it that I felt really bad telling him the whole thing was giving me some seriously bad juju.

In the end (after I am sure he silently cursed me for about 2-3 hours) he came up with plan B. A plan that seemed much less likely to smash our cars or kill our children if it had some kind of catastrophic failure. To his continued credit he called me out the garage to review the plans with me & make sure I had no lingering doubts about any potenial disasters before he put his plan into action (seriously the man has limitless patience with me sometimes).

And so, without further ado I present to you Mr. Crackers latest brainstorm...the side-of-the-house-canoe-holder (I probably need to come up with a catchier name, but that one works for now):

Here's another view of his handiwork.

Ta-da! Not only does it keep the canoe out the of the way, but it has the added benefit of providing our recycling container with a little shelter from the elements.

Thank you Mr. Crackers for your perseverance and your tolerance for your worst-case-scenario-imagining-wife. I love the new "system". And I'm also very happy the canoe is back in our hands again. With all of the non-stop rain and flooding that have been plaguing our part of the country for the past 3 weeks, we'll be getting more use out of that canoe than we ever imagined.

Updates around the house

So, I think I posted back in January that we were going to finally re-do the kids bathroom. Since it's one of the smallest rooms in the house, you'd be right in thinking we could have done it all in a single weekend. But why get it done so quickly when we could stretch it out and have everything in total disarray for weeks?

It honestly didn't take us three whole months to complete. The wallpaper border was a little challenging and took a bit more time to remove than I had planned. But once I repaired all the walls (Someone needs to explain to me why the previous owners felt the need to use over 20 drywall anchors in the walls of such a small room. Once I removed all of them, the bathroom walls resembled a piece of lacy swiss. A delicious bit of cheese to be sure, but not anything you'd want your drywall to look like. Needless to say, I went through about half a container of spackle to fill all the holes and make the walls smooth once again) the painting only took a couple of days.

Mr. Crackers helped out a lot by installing the new light fixture, towel bar and new faucets. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. At some point I hope to put a wood frame around the mirror, but for now I'm calling it done.

For those of you who can't remember, here is what the bathroom used to look like:

It was a fish theme that had started to get on my nerves. The wallpaper border, the worn out rugs, the "Hollywood dressing room" light bar all needed to go.

Not to mention that the brass fixtures in the room had all started to corrode a bit.

So, I found this cute shower curtain at Target & we (eventually) proceeded to update the room to it's new look:

Voila!

I don't know about you, but I like it much better. The paint and accessories are bright and fun without being too juvenile. And I really like all of the new bronze fixtures in the room. I seem to have a thing for bronze, so now this bathroom matches the powder room downstairs. It's almost like we've got a design point of view for the house.

And I just fell in love with these little owl pictures I found on Etsy. They are so cute & just happened to match the colors in the shower curtain perfectly.

Since this room serves as our guest bathroom when we have overnight guests, I'm happy that we finally got the room done. Our first guest arrives in less than a week. Nothing like cutting it a little close.

We (and by we I mean Mr. Crackers) also managed to hang new shelves in the pantry and in the laundry room to make the room usable again after the "cabinet incident" back in February. All of these projects have had the nice side effect of getting us to organize and clean out a lot of the spaces where we had let junk accumulate. I ended up selling a lot of stuff on Craig's List and made a nice amount of cash from the sale of all of our old stuff.

So now that all that Spring cleaning is done, we're ready to spend a little time outside...if it ever stops raining. It seems like it has rained non-stop for the past four weeks. Hopefully all of these April showers will bring us some gorgeous May flowers.

I think my laundry room might be haunted

So as you can tell I really haven't been delivering on either of my resolutions for 2011. Unless you count posting once a month as "more regularly" or if sitting at my computer can count as "exercising at least 3 times a week". Oh well, as usual I will shoot to do a little better.

It's kind of imperative I get going on the exercise regime as soon as possible since in the last 3 weeks I have had to retire 2 pairs of jeans. I was still able to wear both of them somewhat comfortably (a big thank you to whoever came up with the genius idea of adding spandex to denim. A marriage made in heaven for those of us in our 40's!). Although I could button & zip them up, I had been noticing that they were getting a bit snug around the upper thigh & derriere. In the end it was my keister that did them in. Apparently the task of stretching over my ever-widening tuckus was such a strain that the fabric just plum wore out. The first pair ripped as I was sitting down to play a game with the kids. I could have chalked that up to shoddy workmanship except for the fact that about a week later (while wearing a different pair) my daughter pointed out that she could clearly see my underwear through the holes in the bottom of my jeans. Hmm...it's probably a little past time to get myself under control again.

But before heading down to see what special kind of pain Jillian Michaels can inflict upon me today, I thought I'd share a little bit of the craziness that has been the House of Crackers over the past couple of weeks.

I'll start with Valentine's Day. This is a somewhat meaningless holiday as I seemed to have married a man (who just like my father) feels that it is a made-up/phony holiday created for the sole purpose of selling cards and flowers. And while I may agree with their opinion, I still like getting flowers from time to time & don't begrudge the floral industry their chance to make some money while at the same time delivering beautiful spring blooms to my doorstep.

But since flowers have not made an appearance in my house for many years, I choose to think of Valentine's Day in a different light...the day before my birthday. Having a birthday the day after Valentine's Day served me well in the years before I met my husband as in "Who cares that I don't have a Valentine, tomorrow I'll get presents & cake!". And it has served me well in the years after I was married when it was decided that we wouldn't celebrate the holiday anymore since we were long past the wooing stage.

Anyhoo, as I was saying I really had no expectations for Valentines Day beyond the fact that I would be helping out with my daughter's Valentine's Day party in the morning. Except for that small diversion, the day was looking like any other Monday. At least it was until C found the last tiny bit of ice left on the driveway and promptly fell down right as my neighbor arrived to drive him school.

He promptly screamed and clutched his left arm to his chest. He's a pretty tough kid, so as soon as I looked at the pain in his eyes, I got my daughter into the carpool van and then took him inside to assess the damage. Since I have no medical degree, my assessment didn't take very long, and my conclusion was simple. A trip to the doctor's office was in our immediate future. So instead of attending the Valentine's Party for my daughter's Early 5's class, I spent the morning in our doctor's office and then in our local Childrens' Hospital X-ray facility where we discovered that C had indeed broken his wrist.

I'm happy to report that it was a minor fracture and that it was splinted and he was able to return to school in time for his second grade class Valentine's Party. Thank goodness! He's still upset over the fact that he missed the class Christmas party because of an ear infection.

Sadly though, Valentine's Day wasn't quite done with me yet. Later that evening I was upstairs talking with Mr. Crackers on the phone when I heard what can only be described as a giant crash coming from downstairs. Knowing that C was down there alone with his newly broken arm put me in a tizzy. I frantically hung up on Mr. Crackers and ran down the stairs two at a time. Visions of him pinned under a large piece of furniture began running through my brain. When I ran into the kitchen, I was relieved to see him standing there looking at a magazine. He looked up at my panicked expression and simply said, "It wasn't me."

I did a quick scan & found nothing out of the ordinary in the kitchen and family rooms, so I headed toward the laudry room since it is adjacent to the kichen. It's a tiny room, really more of a hallway that links the garage to the kitchen than an actual room, but I figured I'd check and make sure everything was A-OK. But as soon as I started to open the door my nostrils were assaulted by the smell of alcohol. Lots of alcohol. My laundry room smelled like a distillery, and for some reason I couldn't seem to get the door open all the way. That's when I looked down and saw the 3" layer of broken glass all over the floor.

Apparently the noise I heard was one of the laundry room cabinets -- the one that held all the laundry detergent and most of our crystal vases along with a few bottles of alcohol -- falling off the wall and spilling its contents all over our tiny laundry room. Sincerely, forget the fact that it was Valentine's Day, this was shaping up as one of my worst Mondays in recent memory.

Once I called Mr. Crackers back to tell him what had happened (it turns out that screaming "Oh my God what was that!" Followed by "I have to hang up now!" is not the best way to end a conversation with a spouse who is making his way home in rush hour traffic.) I began to pick up the million pieces of glass that now carpeted the floor. Mr. Crackers walked in the door about 20 minutes later just as I swept up the last of the glass and helped clean up the rest of the mess. We were both happy that no one got hurt and that we didn't really loose anything that we really needed. In the words of Mr. Crackers, "We never used those crystal vases for anything anyway." Truer (and more depressing) words have never been spoken.

Thankfully, I'm happy to report that the rest of the day passed uneventfully. True to form, my birthday was great and filled with more than enough good stuff to make up for my lackluster Valentine's the previous day. It was a wonderful day that included both presents and cake as well as chocolate fondue. Trust me, the chocolate fondue was so good I completely forgot about the laundry room accident. At least temporarily.

We haven't had the time yet to fix the laundry room yet, so all of my detergent, dryer sheets and other laundry stuff has been living in a large plastic tote on top of the dryer. Since all of us were down to our last remaining pairs of clean underwear, it was time for me to do a little laundry yesterday. So I took the detergent out of the tote and placed it on the dryer so it was easier for me to access as I began my weekly laundry marathon. I put the second load into the washer & left the room to finish making lunch. When I left the laundry room the detergent bottle was on the dryer -- but when I came back 45 minutes later to change loads, the bottle had fallen off the dryer and the floor was now covered with bright blue Cheer laundry detergent. It's like there's a poltergeist living in my laundry room.

Seriously I don't know how else to explain that the bottle fell and manged to spill its entire contents (96 loads worth of detergent if the label can be believed) on to the floor. The bottle was completely empty. Not a drop left. I can't empty the bottle that well when I'm trying to squeeze out the last little bit. Clearly someone doesn't want me in the laundry room anymore (I mean someone besides me).

I'm still working on the laundry and I a little afraid to see what happens next. I just hope whatever it is doesn't ruin any of my jeans. Only a truly evil spirit would force me to go jean shopping before I can shed a little of the extra padding I've put on over the past few months.

Blue, Green or Yellow?

So I finally decided yesterday that it was time to join the party and get going with some New Year's resolutions. I suppose one of my resolutions should be to get a little more on top of things in a timely manner, but meh...I'll save my energy for other resolutions instead.

I won't bore you with the whole list (I can see the relief written all over your face), but I will tell you that one of my resolutions is to try and blog with a little more frequency than I have of late. While this resolution may go by the wayside as so many do, I'll at least make an attempt to get into the spirit (two weeks late) today.



In the almost seven years we've lived in our house, we've made a concerted effort to repaint and redesign the rooms to better fit our family "style". I'm not sure I could actually define what our style is, but I can tell you that it is very different than the people who lived in the house before us. The previous owners were really big fans of sponge painting and wallpaper borders. Not that there's anything wrong with that...I'm not here to judge. It's just that personally I don't happen to be fan of those two particular design tools. I'm more a fan of traditional paint jobs with an accent wall thrown in here and there to inject a bit of color.

Within the first two years we lived here we got most of the rooms repainted and removed almost all the wallpaper borders in the main living areas and bedrooms. It was a relief to put our own stamp on the place, but as life got more busy we slowed down and then finally stalled out completely with two rooms left unchanged.

This past fall we finally tackled one of those rooms - the office. Not only did the room have seafoam green carpeting, but it had a sports themed wallpaper border, a chair rail, and a maroon and tan sponge painting job. It was honestly a lot to take in, especially considering the office is the smallest room in the house.

Finally Mr. Crackers had had enough (Since I spent more time in that room than anyone else in the family I had become immune the room's wild decorative elements) and so we decided it was time for a change. Mr. Crackers took down the chair rail, made me a new desk and put a new closet system in place so that I could organize all of our accumulated junk important stuff. Once all the hard work was done, I repainted the room a light tan with a burnt orange accent wall (I wasn't kidding about that accent wall thing - I'm a huge fan). I'd post a picture of the completed office here, but I can't seem to locate them on my hard drive & honestly I'm just too lazy to re-take pictures to show you right now. But trust me, it looks great!

That left just 1 room untouched. The kids bathroom. Thankfully this room had been spared the sponge painting found in so many of the other rooms in the house, but it did have a wallpaper border - a school of brightly patterned fish. We didn't love the border, but the walls were a satisfactory shade of light blue and since the fish theme was an easy one to work with, we ran with it.




And seven years later we still haven't done anything to update the room. To be honest, I am really starting to hate the fish. I didn't like them that much seven years ago and they really haven't grown on me since that time. So since the walls need a fresh coat of paint anyway... you guessed it. It's time for a re-do.

I found a really cute shower at Target that fulfilled all of my needs:
1. It was cheap inexpensive
2. It was colorful, but didn't hurt the eyes
3. It was NOT a fish theme
4. It was whimsical but not too juvenile (I'm hoping to go another 7 years before the next update)

Now comes the hard part...what color should the walls be? Here's a picture of what we're dealing with.

Even though the walls are currently blue and I normally like to make a big change when I paint a wall, I'm still leaning toward repainting the walls a slightly darker shade of blue that is already on them.

I like the green too, but I think since our bedroom was close to that same shade when we moved in & I was so relieved to paint over it that it seems a little weird to reintroduce the color in another room (Of course since this room will NOT be sponge painted the green will probably look a lot better).

I'm really not sure how I feel about a yellow bathroom. Does anyone want to enter a bright yellow bathroom first thing in the morning? It seems like it might have the potential to permanently damage your retinas. It could be a little overpowering in such a small place. Hmm...I just don't know.

I put a ballot up on the wall so everyone can have a vote. We'll see what happens. Do you care to weigh in on the subject? What's your color preference? I'm open to all opinions at the moment, so fire away.

I'm slowly acquiring all of the accessories to go with the shower curtain. Hopefully within the next month or so I'll have the paint and everything else I need to start the job. And even though completing home improvement tasks in a timely manner is not on my newly minted list of resolutions (much to Mr. Crackers chagrin), I'll still try to have the whole thing completed by the time spring break rolls around. Since more regular blogging is on my list, I'll do my best to keep you updated on the status (or lack thereof) of my latest home improvement project.

O Tannenbaum

Last Thursday we headed out to get our Christmas tree.

Every year I imagine our whole family driving out to a local farm to pick our own Christmas tree. I dream of us looking around at all the beautiful trees around us and settling on one that catches our collective eye. It is beautiful and full and fragrant.... And then we chop it down, strap it to the top of our minivan and haul it home where it will spend the rest of its short life decorated with white lights and sparkly ornaments.

But then as December comes, reality sets in. I look at our busy calendar and remember how cold December in Ohio can be. So instead of driving out to a farm, we head to our local home improvement super store to pick a tree.

Once at the store, a yearly pattern emerges. Mr. Crackers holds up a tree & says "What do you think?". Our son C is usually not even in the same row with us. He's typically running around, so hopped on Christmas tree fever that he can't even stand still long enough to look at any tree for more than 1.2 seconds. Meanwhile K is bundled up in her winter coat with her hat covering most of her eyes & the collar of her coat up over her nose. You can't really even see her face as she continually complains, "I'm cold!".

Once Mr. Crackers has the tree in his hands, I keep asking both kids, "What do think guys? Is this the one?" From the next aisle over C shouts "Yep, that's the one Mom". While K gives me a muffled, "I'm still cold! Can we go home?"

I try and give the tree a critical look while shouting "C, please come over here. Stay where I can see you please! Stop running around like a maniac!" Finally I say, "I feel like we should look at another one, before making our decision."

This goes on for about 15 minutes as Mr. Crackers continues to patiently hold up tree after tree while C runs around the store, K whines about the cold and I say, "Hmmm...I'm not sure this is the one. Maybe just one more."

Finally I reach a point where the whining and running start to wear on my patience and I decide that whatever tree Mr. Crackers is holding is the tree we are buying. Not necessarily because it is the prettiest or the most full. Simply because he is holding that particular tree when I decide it's time to go.

Thankfully, most of the time we've gotten pretty lucky. I mean, once you put lights and ornaments on a tree it typically looks really good, even if it isn't very full and has huge gaps that are missing branches. Put enough ornaments and lights on it, and usually looks just like every other Christmas tree we've ever had.

Once we bring the tree home, it is my job to put the lights on it each year. I am a crazy person about lights. I like a lot of lights on the tree, but I don't like to see the wires. I go nuts when I can see too many wires (insert Mommy Dearest joke here). Because of this lunacy it takes me a bit of time to get the lights on the tree. I blame this problem on my Dad who was afflicted with this same issue in my childhood. I remember waiting and waiting for what seemed like hours for him to get all of the lights on the tree. I also remember complaining about how long it took him to get the lights up.

So in a twist of irony and fate, I now do the same thing to my kids. Kind of... Since according to Mr. Crackers it is "EXTREMELY PAINFUL" to watch me put lights on the tree, I try to get the lights on when no one is around. That way, I get to take my time and be a true maniac about wrapping the strands of lights around each branch I come to. And the kids and Mr. Crackers don't have to watch me do it while continually asking, "are you done yet?" See, everybody wins!

Usually, putting the lights on the tree takes me a couple of hours. But since I am listening to Christmas music and am thoroughly wrapped up in the task, the time usually goes pretty quickly. This year though for some reason EVERY STRAND OF LIGHTS THAT WE OWN STOPPED WORKING! I know that sometimes I am prone to exaggeration, but I am telling you the truth. It was both incredibly frustrating and really odd. So, a job that normally takes 2 hours, took me ALL DAY!

Thankfully though last year we bought this tool:

O Light Keeper Pro Bulb Tester and Repair Tool, how I love thee!

Although it took quite a bit of time, my handy light repair tool and I finally got all but one of the strands working again. Admittedly there were quite a few bulbs out on each of the newly repaired strands, but since each strand had about 200 lights, they still glowed brightly. And honestly, I was just happy that I got the strands to work again. Now I know most normal people upon finding that their strands of lights were no longer working would just truck their hiney over to their local Target to buy new strands of lights, but as you now from reading this blog I am not normal.

So it was with a sense of pride (and also a bit of leftover frustration) that I finally announced to my family late in the afternoon that the lights were on and tree was ready to decorate.

We spent a really nice Friday evening decorating the tree and looking at all of our ornaments. While picking the tree may not have been a warm family moment, decorating the tree definitely falls into that category. Once we are done decorating, everyone shares with the family their favorite ornament and I think everyone's favorite changes every year. Decorating the tree is always one of my favorite things to do during the Christmas season. Maybe that is why I am such a lunatic about the lights.

As I came down the stairs the next morning, Mr. Crackers looked at me and said, "I have to tell you something. But first I want you to look me in the eye and take a deep calming breath. Are you calm?"

"Well, I was a moment ago before you started freaking me out What is going on?!"

"I just need you to be calm. Are you calm?"

"Holy cow! Just tell me what is happening! Is everyone OK?"

"Look at me. Just promise me you won't freak out."

"WHAT. IS. IT!"

" OK. Here it is. A strand of lights just went out on the Christmas tree".

"Oh. Is that all?! Geez, you had me really freaked out there for a second. I thought something awful had happened. A strand of lights huh? That's OK. Geez."

And it was. I'm not sure if that was his plan or not, but in terms of all of the terrible things that could have happened, the darkening of a strand of lights on the Christmas tree wasn't even a blip on my radar screen. So I may be a lunatic, but at least I have my priorities in order. Whew, dodged a bullet on that one.

Then two nights ago another strand blew out. Oh well. Our tree may be getting a bit darker, but it's still really beautiful.

Just remind me next year to get new lights.

Something's fishy

I'll start this post by telling you that sometime this past summer we took care of a fish for a neighbor/friend for about a week (I originally typed that we fishsat for a friend, but it looked really weird & I was pretty sure no one would understand what I was talking about). And despite all of the fun trips and activities we participated in the rest of the summer, the presence of a fish in our home for a week seems to be one of the biggest highlights in the recent life of my two hooligans.

For weeks after, we'd hear comments like, "When I grow up & I can have a pet of my own I want to get my very own fish." Really!? Most kids want a horse or something with fur. A fish? I would remind them that we have a very sweet dog at home & tell them how lucky they were to have her. But, in the usual way they would ignore my comment and continue to weave fanciful tales about their future lives of fish ownership.

They must come by this love of fish from their father. When Mr. Crackers and I started dating he had a 20 gallon aquarium set up in his living room. I'm sure there were fish in it, but honestly I can't remember them. For me, fish are occasionally interesting to watch, but they don't really seem like pets. I mean you can't pet them or play with them or really even interact with them in any way. I'm not really sure they should be considered pets. To me they really seem to fall into the same category as house plants. You know, something that requires a little bit of attention from time to time but really act more as a part of the general scenery.

That may be why we've never really had the fish tanks (and we have 3 that we have moved from house to house over the years) filled since we have had kids. There were years when I could barely keep a houseplant alive. Taking care of fish in addition to the kids and our 2 dogs seemed ridiculous.

But I seem to be the only member of the family that feels that way.

About two weeks ago, while I was busy upstairs on the computer (Christmas shopping, not really working) Mr. Crackers and the hooligans started to quietly pull our 20 gallon tank out of the basement crawl space and get it ready for fish. By the time I came downstairs the kids were vibrating with excitement about the prospect of owning their own fish. Their dreams were finally coming true!

That Sunday after church we headed to our local pet store to get the fish. Everyone got to pick out a few and we came home with a total of 7 fish and a crab (the crab was my pick). We also joined the fish of the month club. Who knew such a thing existed? Apparently for just $2.99 we now get to come back to the store every month and get a free fish to add to the tank. Can you think of another "pet" that you can purchase by the dozen for just $2.99?! I'm telling you I don't think I'm the only one who thinks of them more as scenery.

Once we were home the fish were eased into their new aquarium and were promptly named. K named her guppies Angel, Angelina and Katie. C chose Cameron, Sweetie Pie and Snowbell for his orange fish (not to be confused with goldfish). Mr. Crackers picked Frank the Tank for his picasimus. And I dubbed the crab Milo.

In the days that followed both Angel and Frank left us for the big fish tank in the sky. Apparently it's pretty common for a lot of fish deaths in the early stages of aquarium ownership. Something about the "nitrogen cycle". My brain shuts down upon hearing anything involving chemical reactions, so I'm not sure I completely understand what is happening. But, thankfully Mr. Crackers knew it was coming and had warned the kids about it before we even got the fish home, so their deaths were not at all traumatic. Whew! And even better, the store has a return policy on all their fish, so we were able to get a store credit for the 2 that died. Wahoo!

The kids have had a really good time watching the fish. They'll sit there and stare into the tank for long periods of time just watching them swim around. I have to admit that I am also having fun with our new "pets". While I still find the fish a little boring (especially now that I don't have to count them a few times a day to make sure they are all still alive), I find owning a crab to be fairly interesting especially since Milo (the crab) seems to be an extreme recluse.

It's like a live version of where's Waldo. It takes me at least 3-5 minutes to find Milo every morning. A few times we've actually resorted to taking the castle out of the tank and turning it upside down to find him. And both Mr. Crackers and I have caught him hanging out at the top of the tank like he's poised for escape. The crabs in the store were all out and about having fun. It was like a giant crab party in the tank. Perhaps Milo is lonely. Maybe we'll have to use our store credit to buy him a friend.

But for now Milo, Sweetie Pie, Snowbell, Cameron, Katie and Angelina will have to wait. We've still got a couple of weeks until the "nitrogen cycle" is complete and we can add more friends to the tank.

In the meantime I'll just thank my lucky stars that we didn't have to care for my neighbor's cat.

Thankful

Today I am thankful for more than I can possibly say. The older I get, the more I realize how truly blessed I am. I am grateful for my health, the smiles and laughter of my children, the love of my husband, the strength of my family, and the friendships of those whom I see everyday as well as those that are separated from me by miles.

I am thankful for friends who have come home safely to their families after bravely serving their country overseas and grateful to all those I don't know who are still serving so far away from their loved ones.

I am thankful that I live in a country that celebrates the freedom of its citizens and sets aside a day each year so that we can remember how truly blessed we are.

Happy Thanksgiving from the House of Crackers!

All clear

For about the last 11 months I've had stomach pains. They were somewhat intermittent and although sometimes painful, never seemed quite so bad as to warrant a special trip to the doctor. Just when I would consider seeking some medical help the pains would subside for a bit & I'd get on with other things.

Over the course of the past year I have slowly figured out some of the things that exacerbated the problem and did my best to eliminate them from my diet. I was very sad when I discovered that coffee, Coke, alcohol and spicy foods were some of the worst culprits. My abbreviated diet made feel like I was pregnant again -- but without the frequent peeing, weight gain, and childbirth that usually accompany a real pregnancy.

I found a couple of over the counter medications that seemed to help a little bit, but over the long haul the problems kept coming back. So, on a visit to my doctor for a separate issue a few weeks back I mentioned my ongoing stomach battles.

I guess I figured my doctor would prescribe something or give me the green light to take Prevacid everyday (being a rule follower, I didn't want to take it for more than the 2 weeks that are recommended on the bottle without a doctor's go ahead). Instead, I was told that I would be getting a call from a GI doctor and that I would be the lucky recipient of both an upper GI endoscopy and a colonoscopy! Wahoo! Apparently my family history was a deciding factor in going for the whole work up. As my new GI doc said,"You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family history." Bah-dum-dum!

The fateful day of my digestive adventure (this is what I will be calling my procedures from here on out since it sounds more daring and less like something that was done to me while I lay unconscious on a table) was Wednesday of this week.

Unlike some people in my family (& I'm looking at you Mr. Crackers) the part I was dreading was not taking the laxatives and cleaning out the pipes. No, what I was dreading was the day of clear liquids before the cleaning even started. You see, I'm a grazer. I eat all day long. I never seem to be able to eat a lot at any one sitting, but you can bet that about every couple of hours I'm looking for something else to stuff into my pie hole. So, the idea of not being able to eat anything substantial for an entire day had me in a bit of a tizzy. I mean really, I'm the person who eats all the noodles and chicken in a bowl of chicken noodle soup and leaves the broth behind. A day of nothing but jello, broth and hard candies sounded a bit like torture to me.

Where's all the good stuff?

When I originally scheduled my digestive adventure (see, it sounds better than colonoscopy doesn't it?) I had a few requirements: I wanted a day when I wasn't driving the carpool in the morning and one that was immediately proceeded by a day where I've got a lot going on. It just so happens that Tuesdays, especially Tuesday mornings are really busy, so I scheduled the adventure for Wednesday morning figuring that all that activity the day prior would keep my mind occupied.

Little did I know that both of my kids would get sick and that we would be spending all of Tuesday in the house together. And since the kids were lying on the couch watching TV in a somewhat vegetative state that my "busy day" would turn into a very long, very quiet day.

As you can imagine, I was doing everything I could -- cleaning, laundry, reading books -- to keep my mind off food. I eventually had to hide the cookies since I found myself clutching the bag several times almost involuntarily. The only upside was that since the kids were sick enough to spend the whole day on the couch, they were safe from my increasing crankiness. And trust me, I was getting really cranky. I was having daydreams about cheeseburgers. And it was just about agonizing to sit with the family watching them eat Chinese take-out for dinner while I forced down more clear broth while trying to pretend it was really chicken fried rice. Sadly, my imagination just wasn't that good.

I won't go into the details of the evening before my digestive adventure began (I hear you thanking me from here), but I will say that I really didn't get more than a few hours of sleep. Except for the lack of sleep, the process itself wasn't bad at all and as a perk I finally got to take advantage of the fact that we still subscribe to HBO. I have to say I got lucky and there were some really good movies on at 3:30 Wednesday morning.

By the time the sun started to rise, my preoccupation with food had been replaced by a new worry...anesthesia. I have luckily never been sedated before and was secretly terrified that I would be the 1 person in 100000 who would go under, have a reaction to the anesthesia and never wake up again. I knew myself well enough not go and do any research on the subject online. Past early morning Webmd research jaunts have proven that I have a tendency to overreact and focus on the worst possible scenario I find. Once the kids were up, the rest of the morning flew by and thankfully I didn't have time to worry about the risks of sedation.

Before I knew it I was at the doctor's office and found myself being called back to get ready for my digestive adventure. They had me undress and change into a giant hospital gown, yet for some reason had me keep my shoes and socks on. I'm sure I must have looked as weird as I felt wearing my a hospital gown along with brown socks and brown suede shoes. I felt a bit like a flasher especially since the hospital gown was about 5 sizes too big and despite all the fasteners I had to keep a death-like grip on the front to avoid flashing the nurses and all of the other patients in various states of consciousness.

I laid down in the bed and they put in an IV and rolled me into the procedure room. Once there, they told me they were going to mix a little "medicine" in with my oxygen and that I should make sure to breathe through my nose. I had a moment of worry, then I took one deep breath and said "Wow you aren't messing around, this stuff really packs a punch." And then after that, everything else is a blank.

Thankfully my Mom was there, because apparently (although I don't remember the conversation since I was still a little out of it from the anesthesia) the doctor met with me after the procedure and informed me that everything looked good. Whew! I was in the clear - no ulcers or other issues. It looks like my stomach just produces too much acid so I was given a prescription to take everyday to control it.

The next thing I can remember is getting back into my Mom's car and requesting that she drive as quickly as possible to the nearest Arby's -- even though I had been dreaming of cheeseburgers I wasn't sure my system could handle all that grease. And besides, I just can't get enough of that French Dip and Swiss sandwich. Whoever came up with that one is an evil genius!
I've been on the new meds for a few days & so far they really seem to work well. So, I guess in the end I got what I wanted: a prescription for something that is safe for me to take everyday. I guess I just had to go through a bit of an adventure to get them. With medicine in hand I feel like I'm finally ready to take on all of the holiday feasting this season...which is definitely something to be thankful for.

A quick tour of my accidental garden

There are some strange things afoot in my garden this year. After a very hot and very dry summer, many of my plants have passed on to that big garden in the sky (in other words they've died of neglect since their owner frequently forgets to water them). But oddly, my garden seems to be thriving despite all of my efforts to the contrary. It seems as though the plants have taken matters into their own hands this year.


Every spring I get excited about the warmer temperatures and the thoughts of sitting outside on the patio surrounded by beautiful flowers while eating herbs and vegetables picked from my very own garden. So, every year I run out to one of my local nurseries and purchase flowers, herbs and tomatoes and eventually (after several reminders from Mr. Crackers that the plants won't be beautiful if they all die in the containers before I actually get them into some dirt) plant them in pots and mulched beds around the backyard. And for those first lovely weeks of summer I diligently water them and feel a fierce sense of pride in my beautiful surroundings.


And then...it gets hot. And we go on vacation. And I forget to water and those lovely flowers and plants that I purchased just 6 weeks earlier. And so they start to look like this....





(I just noticed that the flower painted on this pot is upside down...and I've had this pot for years. Yes, I know that the bottom of the pot doesn't match the top. I am really cheap when it comes to buying pots for outside...it's just something I hate to spend money on. I don't know why.)


Or in extreme cases, the pots start looking like this...



(The dead daisies that used to live in this pot have been put out of their misery so that you don't have to see the brown death that my neglect has caused. You're welcome. And yes, I know this pot is broken. As I mentioned before I hate spending money on pots for the patio. )


But then this year as plants began to die around the garden, I noticed something strange happening. New flowers and plants that I did not buy started appearing around the garden.


This was the first one I noticed. I didn't buy any wave petunias this year, and yet this plant was bravely growing in a small crack between the patio stones and the house. I have no idea how it got there nor do I understand how it has survived the past 4 weeks, but I've started watering it. I just can't bear to watch it die now.





(I have no idea what that broken pipe is that is leading directly into my house. I thought it had something to do with the heating/cooling system, but I was informed by my heating/cooling guy that it wasn't. He told me that frankly he couldn't tell what it was or where it was leading to. I'm scared of this pipe. I am also scared of all of the creatures that might be living in it. Sometimes I think of this pipe late at night & I'm sure it's some kind of highway system for all of our neighborhood rodents to gain access to our home. But that's probably a story for another day...)



Then I noticed this petunia growing in a pot that had once housed what I think was a beautiful African yellow daisy that I couldn't resist back in early May. Again, I'm not sure where this new plant came from, but I'm happy that this pot has a pretty occupant again.








It's not just flowers that are making their way into my garden uninvited. Mr. Crackers was weeding his roses about a month ago when he noticed another new plant. This cherry tomato plant seems to have found a home amongst the roses. It makes for a tricky harvest, but I'm not complaining. Free tomatoes (and no we didn't plant any cherry tomatoes this year either).








We have since found two other tomato plants growing around the yard. They haven't produced any tomatoes yet, but I'm pretty sure these are cherry tomato plants too. This one found a nice home next to the fountain and I've been making sure he's been getting plenty of water.








This little guy is growing right next to the play set, which is definitely not a prime location for vegetable habitation. I cut the plant back & even ran it over with the lawn mower, but it just keeps coming back.




I'm not sure what this all means, but I'm not complaining about it. Heck, I hope it continues. Maybe next spring I won't even have to go to the nursery to buy any plants. Maybe the garden will just take of itself. Wouldn't that be lovely? Maybe I could train them to help clean the house too. A girl can dream right?

P.S. Anyone need any cherry tomatoes? I have a feeling we'll have a bumper crop soon.

Seeing Red

About mid-May I decided that the trim work on the house was in desperate need of a face lift. The shutters and front door had faded to a hue I like to call "the color formally known as red". It was a light red/orange color that spoke volumes about how long it had been since the last time it had been painted.

I turned to Mr. Crackers & declared, "This summer I am painting all of the trim on the house." He smiled and nodded somewhat distractedly since I had already made the declarations, "This summer I am repainting all the patio furniture." and "This summer I am painting the chiminea." about 2 weeks prior to this latest statement. Apparently I had big plans for a lot of outdoor projects this summer. Outdoor projects are usually the specialty of Mr. Crackers, but since I have yet to agree to his latest idea (a basketball court in the side yard that seems to me as if it will violate all sorts of property zoning laws), and we seem to be at a standstill on trying to find the right pickets to repair our fence, I guess the outdoor projects fall to me this year.

So, we chose a color and I got to work the week before Memorial Day. I figured since we had a lot of company coming over for a cook-out it was the perfect motivator to get all my projects done. In hindsight, I may have been crazy a little overly optimistic about my painting capabilities time-wise. The good news is that I did manage to get the front door finished before company came (even if the paint was still a bit tacky to the touch...)

But I can honestly say that none of the rest of my list of projects was completed. Nevertheless, I felt I had some momentum going, so I decided to tackle the patio furniture next. I had gotten most of the set painted (OK, so I still needed to finish a chair and a side table...and alright, if I'm honest the rest of the set really needed a second coat too) when Mr. Crackers took down all the shutters so I could paint those the following week.

So, I took a short break on my patio furniture painting project and switched gears. I got managed to get the first two shutters painted and then....

rain

and more rain

and yes, even more rain

and then vacation managed to slow me down a bit



In fact, the shutters sat for so long that birds did their business and the spiders built their webs on my newly painted shutters...before I even managed to get them re-hung on the house.

For those of you who can't tell, the freshly painted (yet bird stained) shutters are on the left. The faded and not yet painted shutters (also bird stained) are on the right. Trust me, in person the difference in the two colors is a little more dramatic.

So, feeling a bit behind I got back into the swing of things this week & actually managed to paint another couple of shutters...

So now I am officially half way done with the painting of the shutters. Yea!



I celebrated this accomplishment, but making yet another proclamation to Mr. Crackers, "This summer I am going to paint the back door!" Seriously, you can probably already guess the look I got when making this declaration, can't you?! And since I can't seem to have enough projects "in progress" I decided to go ahead and start painting the door too...



I had the red paint, so I figured why not? I'm not really sure how I feel about it yet. I've decided to finish painting it (are you laughing?) and then decide if I like it. If not, I figure I'll just re-paint it dark brown (now I'm sure you're laughing... is that an eye roll too?) so it will match the dark brown paint on the patio furniture (you know, once I actually get done painting the furniture ...).

I better get off the computer and head outside to paint another 2 shutters since Mr. Crackers has "Re-hang all shutters" on his to-do list this weekend. Nothing like a little pressure to get me to finally finish a project.

UBOs

I was just coming downstairs after taking an afternoon shower (I had gone for a run with a friend) when Mr. Crackers said, "Oh good you're done. I need you to walk around to the side of the house and look at something with me." While he didn't seem overly worried, I nonetheless had a deep sense of foreboding. I was fully expecting him to point out something like rotten pieces of siding on the house or something else equally expensive and time consuming to repair.

What I was not expecting was for him to point to one of the basement window wells and say, "Look down in there & tell me what you see." As I approached the area he was pointing to, I thought I would see some kind of small reptile like a frog or a turtle. But instead, what I saw was a UBO - an unidentified brown object. Well to be absolutely correct what I saw was a pile of unidentified brown objects.


Upon closer inspection (not too close though), I came to the realization that what I was looking at kind of looked like a pile of poo. Yep, I'm not going to sugar coat this, what I saw really looked like it came from the digestive tract of something. The question was...what in the world was going into our window well to relieve itself? I'll tell you this much, whatever had left these UBOs for us was by no means a small creature (if you get my meaning).

Thankfully, we were running late for Sunday dinner at my parents house, so our analysis of the UBOs were cut short since we had to get a move on. But, as we drove there our conversation once again turned to the window well as we both tried to figure out a logical explanation to how the poo came to be there.



It seemed unlikely that a large neighborhood dog was somehow awkwardly lowering the back half of his body into the well just to do his business. It also seemed unlikely (although admittedly somewhat more gross to contemplate) that a child or teenager would have committed this foul deed. We thought maybe raccoons were to blame, but to be honest we thought that perhaps our UBOs were too large to have come from that particular species.



Thankfully for all involved we tabled the discussion once we arrived at my parents house & instead focused on hearing about their wonderful cruise to Greece and Turkey -- which is obviously much more appropriate dinner conversation than what was lurking in the back regions of our minds.



Once dinner had concluded we decided to do a consult with my parents and see if they had any brilliant ideas on what could have deposited the UBOs (I have a feeling we will not be getting any dinner invitations anytime soon from anyone who reads this blog....). Raccoons were once again brought up a likely source, but none of us seemed to know what Raccoon droppings looked like. (Which is honestly something I think we can all be happy about.)



So, we did what anyone with an Internet connection handy does when faced with a question. We typed the words "raccoon scat" into Google to get a visual. Honestly, I have to say that this was something I really never dreamed I'd be using the Internet for, but low and behold we got the photos we were after (Ewww...) and discovered that apparently our window well had become a LATRINE for a COMMUNITY of raccoons. Umm...let me repeat that news again. We were dealing with a community latrine for a large group of rodents. On one hand, you got it hand it to the raccoons - you kind of have to respect an animal that is organized enough to do such a thing. On the other hand...EWWWW!!!

On every website that Google directed us to were giant warnings about the dangers of raccoon scat. The words blindness and death were used heavily in all of the articles and each one seemed to link back to an article written by the CDC. Suddenly the odd little UBOs we discovered earlier had become a life threatening bio-hazard. Darn raccoons!

Needless to say, we scoured the the Internet for advice on how to safely rid ourselves of the raccoon poo. Information in hand, Mr. Crackers bravely donned surgical gloves upon our return home to dispose of the poo ...and the rocks that touched the poo...and some of the soil below the rocks that touched the poo... and the shovel that touched the rocks and the poo and...(you get the picture).

Once the actual scat had been double bagged and thrown into the trash, I dumped 2 gallons of boiling water over the ground in what we will now refer to as the FORMER raccoon community latrine. Apparently the boiling water kills all the bacteria and (shudder, shudder) all of the roundworm eggs on contact.

As a safety precaution Mr. Crackers and I then poured about 2 cups of bleach onto the ground and then scattered moth balls on top of the whole kit and caboodle. I'm not sure what the moth balls were for, but my Dad thought they might discourage the raccoons from coming back again. Honestly, I was pretty willing to do just about anything to keep the raccoons from depositing more possible blindness and death into my basement window wells.


Mr. Crackers checked on everything this morning & I am happy to report we think the raccoons have moved their latrine somewhere else (either that or they are all crossing their little paws until tonight). The bad news is that he discovered an old and (thankfully) smaller pile of scat in another window well. Dang it! I guess I know what we'll be doing tonight...

My Nemesis

For the most part, the outdoor maintenance around the House of Crackers falls on the very capable shoulders of Mr. Crackers. He's a down in the dirt, get your hands dirty type of guy. He's the one who maintains the lawn, does most of the planting in the garden as well as initiating any large outdoor projects that need accomplished.

Since I am at home a lot more than Mr. Crackers, I do more of the smaller detail work in the yard like weeding, hedge trimming and occasionally trimming the grass along the picket fence that lines our backyard. Since Mr. Crackers does a lot of the mowing (especially in the Spring) during weeknight evenings, we just never really seem to get the trimming done right away. But after a couple of weeks the grass grows so long that I start fearing we may lose the dog or maybe even one of the children along the fence line, so I decide to try & get the trimming done while Mr. Crackers is at work.

And in almost all cases over the past 6 years, I have failed to get the yard trimmed completely on my own....why? Yard Trimmers are my Nemesis. They are my kryptonite. Something happens when a yard trimmer gets placed in my hands that causes the trimmer to stop working. Completely.

We are currently on our 3rd trimmer in 6 years. The first two were corded electric models that were really inexpensive & I would like to think would have broken down as quickly for anyone. The cords inside the trimmers would either stop feeding correctly, or the top of the cord dispenser would continually pop off or some other plastic part would just plain give out. Mr. Crackers would come to my aid once the weekend hit, but (thankfully) would have just as many issues as I did getting the thing to work for more than 5 minutes in a row. Needless to say, trimming has become one of my most hated chores (second only to ironing).

Finally last year after our second electric trimmer failed we decided to get serious and get one of those incredibly loud, gas powered models.



Since we got it about halfway through the summer last year, Mr. Crackers had fun playing with his new toy & usually did the trimming right after he mowed. Not only did it work well for him, but it trimmed the yard in about half the time as our old electric trimmers. By mid-summer the grass wasn't really growing really quickly anymore, so Mr. Crackers could trim about every 2 weeks & everything still looked good.

But, it's Spring again. And the grass is growing so quickly that Mr. Crackers is pulling out the lawn mower every 5 days or so. And yet, the grass along the fence hasn't been trimmed once yet. I would venture a guess that it was at least 6 inches longer than the grass in the rest of the lawn.

So, last night I asked Mr. Cracker to refresh my memory & teach me how to start the electric trimmer. It took him a few minutes (since it hadn't been used in a few months), but he finally got it started. He then taught me how to do it & I decided I'd get out this afternoon & get it done before we lost the dog or one of the kids in the tall grass.

Ha!

Darn Trimmer! I tried to start that thing until both of my shoulders were sore. But could I get it to start? Nope! I finally walked away in case I flooded the engine (can you flood the engine of a trimmer?). After about 20 minutes I came back & tried it again. And once again that flipping trimmer wouldn't start.

I decided to try some tough love and began cursing a blue streak (quietly so as not to disturb my napping pre-schooler or the other neighborhood children) every time I pulled on the cord and it wouldn't start. Even though I felt a little better for venting, the cursing didn't really help get it started either.

I was getting to be seriously disappointed by yet another lawn trimmer (now that's a phrase I never in a million years thought I would say). I was ready to throw the thing into the street when it finally sputtered & coughed to life.

Hooray! I set to work & began trimming along the fence. Boy does that thing vibrate. Even though it was getting a bit heavy I kept soldiering on determined to for the first time in 6 years get the entire lawn trimmed without the aid of Mr. Crackers. I was feeling a real sense of accomplishment as I trimmed along the final stretch of fencing. I mean, just wait until Mr. Crackers sees that I was finally able to do it. Wahoo!

Then, all of the sudden the trimmer seemed to slow down a bit, then it gave a cough and stopped completely. What the what?! Holy cow did I manage to break yet another trimmer?!

Nope. It was just out of gas. And of course it is one of those engines that need an oil & gas mixture. Something that seems entirely too risky for me to attempt to do with my past trimmer history. I decided it would be best to wait for Mr. Crackers and make sure I do it right. I really don't want another lawn trimmer death on my conscience. Darn it, I was so close. Oh well, at least I didn't break this one.

I guess I better go finish the ironing.

San Antonio (or as I like to call it the land of sunshine and free flu shots )

You may (or may not) be asking "Where have you been for the past two weeks Mrs. Crackers?" Well I'll tell ya, I've been in San Antonio, thank you very much. And so your next question might (or might not) be, "You mean you've been in San Antonio for the past 2 weeks?"

Umm, no..not really. I was in San Antonio for 4 days, I just kind of got lazy about doing another blog posting for the rest of that time. But, never fear! I am here to tell you all about my trip (and I promise that it will probably be just as interesting as it usually is when people pull out their vacation pictures and force you to look at them... umm. so sorry)

"Why San Antonio?" you might (but probably aren't) asking yourself. Well, Mr. Crackers had a conference that he was invited to attend in that fair city that just happened to coincide with the day I was cruelly evicted from my thirties and thrust headlong into a new decade (a.k.a. my fortieth birthday). Mr. Crackers had the brilliant idea that I accompany him on this trip & make it into a mini-vacation. My parents miraculously and generously offered to watch my two hooligans for a couple of days, so we jetted south.

Once I saw the convention center, I knew instantly that I had made the right decision to visit Texas. Not only was it beautiful, but it was also sitting under pretty blue skies without so much as a snowflake in sight. I was pretty sure we were going to have a great time (and let's face it, the obvious lack of snow also really added to the city's charm). And even though the city's temperatures were 15-20 degrees below normal, I wasn't complaining 'cause compared to Ohio, the colder temperatures in Texas still felt almost tropical. Plus, those cooler temperatures allowed me to break in my new $40.00 purchase from Marshall's. An "I can't believe it's not leather" pleather biker jacket...

I guess you can call it my mid-life crisis purchase. It's not something I would normally pick up, but I loved it. And after all, a $40.00 jacket seemed like a perfect welcome to your 40's present to myself.

Anyhoo...I spent my birthday wandering around the city's Riverwalk while Mr. Crackers attended hours and hours of (what I can only imagine) were somewhat mind numbing lectures...

Look flowers!




In February!

Yep, I definitely think I got the better end of that deal.

Don't feel too badly for Mr. Crackers though. Even though it was a "working vacation" for him, we still managed to see most of San Antonio's tourist sights together.

And I have to say that we also enjoyed the fact that while we were standing and getting our picture taken in a city with blooming flowers, that back home they were getting another foot of snow dumped on top of the foot of snow left over from the last storm. Not that I wished the snow to happen at all, I was just happy I got to avoid looking at the stuff for a few days. (And I would be remiss if I didn't take another moment to say a giant THANK YOU to Mom & Dad for watching the kids during a time when 2 days worth of activities/school were cancelled due to snow. Yikes!)

By the end of our trip, we managed to see almost everything that downtown San Antonio had to offer. I think we estimated that by the end of the day on Tuesday, we had walked about 10 miles that day. When Wednesday morning rolled around I was feeling all 40 of my years (plus maybe a few more). Which probably leads you to ask another question. "Are you afraid of public transportation Mrs. Crackers?"

Nope, we were just enjoying being outdoors (without having to put on our snow boots).

San Antonio was everything I expected: it was a place with beautiful scenery, friendly people and warmer temperatures. But, all good things come to an end and on Wednesday it was time for us to return to the snowy north. I was ready to come back though, I had really missed my two hooligans. So, we packed up our luggage, complete with all of the new souvenirs we purchased for the kids and for my brave parents who took those kids into their home during a snow filled long weeked and we headed to the airport.

On our arrival to the airport I got myself a souvenir too - my H1N1 vaccinne. That's right, not only do they have flowers blooming in February, but they give away free flu shots in the airport to anyone who wants one. Trust me, I'll remember more than just the Alamo.

And then there was that time that I overcooked the Legos...

I was busy getting ready for C's big Lego birthday extravaganza last week. C had requested another birthday party at home and even though last year I swore I would never do it again, I found myself preparing to host another birthday party for C's friends in my house. The theme for this year's party should be no surprise to you if you've ever met C (or have done any reading of my past blog entries)...he wanted a Lego party.

I had ordered 6 pounds (that's right, 6 pounds) of Legos on ebay & had been sorting through them in order to divide the pieces somewhat equitably among all of our party guests. We were going to use the Lego bricks in a couple of different games & I thought they'd also make mighty fine parting gifts for all the kids. As I sorted through them though, I realized that what I had was 6 pounds (that's right, 6 pounds) of specialty Lego pieces. In other words, there were really no basic Lego bricks to be found in the entire bunch. It turns out that most of my Lego purchase were parts from Star Wars or Power Miner Lego kits. This came as exciting news to C who was thrilled to see so many cool parts in one place, but it presented a bit of a problem for what I had planned.

As I mulled over what my next step would be, I realized that if I could get my hands on some regular Lego bricks, I could add them to what I already had & we could really go to town. I also recalled that a friend of mine offered up the Lego bricks that she used to have in her first grade classroom (she was and still is a teacher).

My friend was kind enough to tell me I could take whatever bricks I needed, so I spent the better part of an hour sorting through the big bin of Legos she offered and I took what I thought would work. After getting a decent-sized pile (about 1/6 of what she had) I decided they could use a good cleaning. Since these bricks had been in a first grade classroom for years, they had some of the typical grime commonly seen on well loved toys.

I filled up the sink with some soapy warm water & starting scrubbing the bricks...by hand...one at a time. It was a bit tedious, but I figured the bricks were free, so a little work on my part wasn't the end of the world. Mr. Crackers (probably rightly so) thought I had gone completely insane. " Why are you washing those bricks?" he asked me. When I explained about the grime & potential germs he shot me a look (you know the look...the one that says, how did I come to be married to this nut job?"), but wisely kept quiet & quickly left the room.

As he passed passed through he kitchen a few minutes later, he suggested that I just dump the Legos into the dishwasher. While this seemed like a good idea to me, I couldn't figure out a way to do that without losing all the the bricks to the bottom & ruining one of our only new kitchen appliances, so I continued washing them one...at...a...time in the sink.

On a second pass through the kitchen, Mr. Crackers said, "Why don't you just put them in some hot water on the stove? You know, kind of disinfect them like we did the kids' bottles when they were babies (that one time...)."

This, to me, sounded like a brilliant idea, so I filled up my big stock pot with water & dumped my pile of Legos right in. I stood next to the oven & occasionally stirred the pot to make sure everything was OK.

And it was OK for about 4 minutes or so, until I started noticing that the Legos began to look a little funny. I scooped a couple out of the pot & saw (to my horror) that I they had begun to melt.

I frantically ran the pot to sink & dumped out all the water & Legos to see what I could salvage. Mr. Crackers came into the kitchen to offer his assistance and after much searching, we discovered that there was nothing to salvage. I had managed to melt an entire pot of Legos....

Want to see my handiwork?





Yep, they are curved and dimpled...

Nary a straight line or 90 degree angle left in sight after I got done poaching them.

To make me feel a bit better, Mr. Crackers tried to build something with the partially melted Legos only to discover that the only thing worse than no Lego bricks are melted Lego bricks. You see, once they melt,even a little bit, they absolutely won't fit together anymore (Duh!).

Since it seemed really mean to give the kids a bunch of warped Legos, and since I didn't have the heart or will to search through the bin of Legos my kind friend offered me again, I ended up ordering a brand new bin of plain Lego bricks from Amazon.com. Thankfully they arrived in plenty of time for me to add them to the bags.

Since they were new, I figured it was safe to serve them to the kids raw.