Good morning

Pride cometh before the fall OR Matthew 7:5

I'm losing my mind. I can't seem to focus on getting something done before getting distracted with a new task or just forgetting what I'm doing. In the past few weeks especially, it seems as though things have gone downhill. It may be because I've been consistently getting less sleep than I need and not exercising. But Mr. M would say otherwise. He would say, "It's karma."

I always thought of myself as organized and on top of things. A doer. A "get it done" gal who has a place for everything and keeps everything in its place. "And I'd have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for these pesky kids!" Last July, I came up with a new plan for laundry which involved putting all the laundry things in the same hall closet: hampers (for dirty clothes), soap, stain treatment, quarters... I've been very pleased with it, although I still for some incomprehensible reason do not like doing laundry. And sometimes, dear readers, sometimes, the laundry piles up. And spills out of the closet. And furthermore, sometimes I ignore it to the point that Mr. M is forced to do the laundry or else quit caring about clean underwear.

After one such desperate occasion when Mr. M had kindly done loads and loads of laundry, I had promised myself that I would stay on top of it. I was doing a load out of duty, rather than desperation. When I looked down into my soap box, the plastic soap scoop was missing. (Un)righteous indignation filled my bosom, and I chewed out Mr. M for losing the soap scoop.

Here we pause for a brief moment. The pattern I have established when I can't find something is to blame my husband. It never fails that the missing item turns up quickly, either because my husband finds it (in my bag) or I find it (in my bag). It's a bit of a joke between us.

Back to the soap scoop. This was not a silly chewout to facilitate finding the soap scoop. It was a grouchy, ungrateful, bile-spewing, get-yourself-a-velcro-suit chew out. What I said, which, ironically, I remember clearly was, "MINDFULNESS, MR. M, MINDFULNESS!"

Since that sad day, any mindfulness I ever had has vanished. In the last few weeks, I have locked myself out of the apartment, I have lost a piece of music that was in my HAND, I have lost (and found) my wallet, I have missed a trial piano lesson that I had set up for Ethan, I have forgotten about signing up to feed the missionaries, and as the photo above shows, I have turned on the wrong burner and left it for a few minutes so that instead of boiling water for pasta, I shattered the pyrex pan that was drying on the stove. I know there are other things I've done, but for the life of me, I CAN'T REMEMBER THEM.

Mea culpa. Lo siento. Can I have my memory back, please?

Happy birthday, Scott!

Here at the M. household, we like to celebrate! For example, Mr. M's birthday was a few weeks ago, but yesterday we bought tickets to see Sting (yes, STING, people!) at the Hollywood Bowl in June. This is considered part of Mr. M's birthday festivities. I confess, it was my idea - Mr. M couldn't care less about celebrating his own birthday.

In fitting with this tradition, we celebrated Scott's birthday over a 4 day period. We began on Monday with his free birthday scoop at Baskin Robbins. On Tuesday, I took the boys to Disney's California Adventure Park. Here they are outside. They got to ride Soaring over California together and loved it!



On Wednesday, his class sang to him, and he wore a birthday crown. I took him to the park and fed him chocolate chunk granola bars. He had a cheese sandwich for lunch, then read by the pool, chasing away some unwelcome duck guests. His friend, the postal carrier, gave him $5. He had a free birthday dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, still wearing his crown from school.


Since we got home too late to do presents, we did brownies and candles and presents tonight, Thursday. His biggest gift was a basketball and basketball class; he also got the game Rush Hour (thanks, Grandpa Tom and Grandma Sue!), his own glue sticks, a coloring book, and a Cars stapler.


And yes, in case you're wondering, we DID eat those brownies, despite the huge quantities of spit that must have been applied by Scott's candle blowing.

There is one last thing to do - get his free birthday ice cream from Coldstone. What a lucky guy - an entire week of birthday celebrations! Love you, Scott!

Wacky Monday

In celebration of Dr. Seuss's birthday, the boys' school invited them to wear wacky clothes today. I kind of like Ethan's hair, actually. If you just can't get enough , check out the video:

Don't try this at home

A word of advice to any people out there with adorable babies who might be growing some weird looking hair. Don't use a mustache trimmer with no guard on it. The end result will be worse than what you started with AND it will be all your fault for either doing it or allowing it to be done. Sigh... At least it doesn't take long for fuzz to grow in.