Little Susie Homemaker

No school today because of the -10 degree temperature and black ice on the road. E and I were bored and made a blueberry pie for Howie. When I was little we used to make "pinwheels" out of the leftover crust. Butter, sugar, cinnamon onto the rolled up crust, cut up and bake right along with the pie. (Really, really healthy.) So that's what I was going to do with her, but she was having so much fun just playing in it that I just let her go. She's still playing as I type this, and I just avert my eyes from the flour covered floor and rug. The apron my mom made for her at Christmas. I have a matching one, but she looks much cuter in hers.

As far as the other kitchen goes, we decided that we better have the furnace inspected before we go tearing the kitchen apart so that we weren't in for any suprises. Well SUPRISE!! We need a new furnace. Some nonsense about cracks in 2 of the 5 heat exchangers and carbon monoxide being dangerous and blah blah blah ;). I watched the guy basically do a colonoscopy on the furnace, and I saw the cracks through his little camera, so I am glad that we found out now rather than at an inspection. So needless to say gutting the kitchen is on indefinite hold.

While the furnace guy was at house, I had to leave for 15 minutes to go get E from school. When I came back, as I drove over the little hill leading to our house, I spotted a Sherrif's Deputy Vehicle in my driveway. In probably 5 milliseconds time thoughts ran through my head like " The furnace guy has a deputy that's a friend",
" The furnace guy found illegal drugs in my house from before we moved there." ,
" It's illegal to have cracked heat exchangers and he called the cops". I couldn't possibly make my brain rationalize what the heck a cop was doing in my empty house. So after the 5 milliseconds, I pulled up to the curb and greeted the nice lady cop. ( Can I say lady cop? Is that like stewardess or actress anymore? ) Anyhow, she wanted to know if I knew a Howard Brown. Instant panic. Yes I know a Howard Brown. Is he dead? Injured? In trouble for the illegal drugs the furnace guy found? None of the above. She wanted to know if he owned a red Dodge Shadow with front end damage parked on a street called Shady Creek. Um, no. Now I myself know 3 other Jen Browns, so I figured that they had the wrong Howard Brown. So she emphasized that she was looking for a Howard W. Brown II. Not so many of those around, just my husband, as far as I know. But we have never owned a Dodge Shadow. ( Those of you that know Howie know he would rather ride a bike to work than own a Dodge.) My brain is still working overtime as I'm talking to this cop. We did own a red Acura Integra that was hit by a drunk driver early last year. It was parked in front of our house and totaled. We got a salvage title and sold it to a guy who works at the local Honda dealership. He was going to use it for parts. So the cop called over on her little walkie-talkie on her shoulder to see if it was an Integra. Which it was. With the plate "6ntwins", which were our old plates from a Toyota Supra he had that he slapped on the Integra and forgot to take off when he sold it. So this guy had pushed it out in front of his house to make room in his driveway for a party. Some neighbor complained that it was just sitting there, and they ran the plates, which came back to us. This is tax money at work, let me tell you. Scaring the crap out of me because of a damaged car parked in the street. I got ahold of the guy at the dealership, who was very apologetic and promised he would move the car. Otherwise it was our responsibility to take care of it in 24 hours. Moral of the story, if you sell a car, make sure you take your plates with you. Otherwise you might end up on the next episode of "Cops".

What we're up to....

Not much. I think we are in a Post-Holiday, Post-Move funk. Howie took a week of vacation last week, so we bummed a couple of days, took a trip to Ann Arbor, and at the advice of my Realtor painted the OLD kitchen..( you know, in the house that has been for sale for 10 months). Really not what I wanted to be doing while he was home, and certainly not what HE wanted to do while he was home, so he didn't, my mom and I did. Wednesday I stripped wall paper all afternoon, then God bless my mom, she got the paint for me and we painted until the wee hours of the morning, which for me is like 9:30 PM. It looks much better, but I opened the proverbial can of worms, ( I think that's the right metaphor?) New paint made the old cabinets look older, we couldn't re-surface the cabinets or put updated hardware on without messing with the hinges, which were falling off and probably couldn't be put back on. The floor looked worse, the molding looked worse, so the next logical step is to tear it all out and have someone put in new, right? Well anyway, that's what we are doing, hoping it will entice someone to buy the house, since everything we have done to date obviously hasn't worked. I will post before and after pics if I get a chance.
Otherwise, the boys are finishing up basketball, and we are in the middle of swimming lessons. We are seriously thinking about guitar lessons for H once basketball is over. Neither Howie or I are terribly musically inclined, ( although I was in the band.. he just played football.) So I think that if he shows some interest in anything that makes him more well rounded, bring it on... I'm not thinking that basketball is his thing, anyhow. Their last game they lost 64-0.

E and I have been working on sewing clothes for her Bitty Baby. I hope some day she loves and cherishes these because right now, she says she doesn't like them as she rips them off. Her baby's name is Jacob, after the little boy down the street. ( Her fish is named Emma, after Jacob's sister). Maybe I should be making little boy clothes, or at least gender neutral. Silly Me

Explanation

For whatever reason the pictures below aren't posting to this site correctly and I can't get words to show up in the same post, so I am writing here. I didn't have batteries in my camera forever, and was forced to get some today because of H's birthday party, so I can finally post Christmas pictures too. #1 is E's Christmas program in which she refused to sing. #2 is our tree. I had no intention of getting a new tree this year, but somebody Howie works with moved, and could no longer use this one. We did a tree swap, and I thought the results were great. #3 is E after a difficult morning of opening Christmas presents. She is sitting here with her favorite, the My Little Pony Surf Shop. ( Didn't you all know that Ponies surf and snorkle? One of the Ponies has flippers and a snorkle, for gosh sake.) Something must be universal about combing their manes and tails, because she spends hours with these ponies doing just that. The other big hit this year was the aformentioned Guitar Hero. (I hear the song "Schools Out for the Summer" in my sleep). The last two pictures are of H's party tonight, he had a couple of boys stay over night after family left, so they are mostly pics of those boys and some of their little brothers, but also of my cousin Danielle, who is back living here from sunny Florida, despite the -7 degree weather. She's a trooper !

Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday

Smells like Teen Spirit

10 years ago I was getting ready to become a mom. 10 YEARS ago. Officially my due date was January 9th, but that went out that window, and a rough 10 days later, H was born by c-section. So in 9 days he will be 10. This is prompting reflection on my part as I feel like the time has gone by in about 30 seconds and my brain must need to process the big 1-0. However changes are happening around here, and I can't deny that we have a pre-teen in the house anymore.

1. Hair. H used to have hair like Howie, almost militant in it's shortness, gelled till it was crispy, and a haircut every 3-4 weeks. If you paid attention to the current Christmas picture, you can see that now it hangs in his eyes and over his ears. His idea, not Howie's. We feel strongly about picking our battles, and especially given Howie's prior fashion choices ( two earrings, anyone ?), let H grow his hair out. His grandma loves it, Howie tolerates it, I think it makes him look old.

2. Shoes. I had to buy him mens shoes. Size 7.5 Wide. These are one and a half sizes bigger than mine and just 1/2 size short of his grandpas. They are also extremely hard to find. Nike and New Balance must think boys jump over this size on their way to paying $150 dollars for tennis shoes. Fortunately this limits the great tennis shoe debate, because he only has the choice of picking from the one pair Kohls had in his size.( We paid 47.99 on sale, by the way, I used the money I saved on haircuts).

3. IPODS. Who buys their kid a $300 IPOD? Apparently some parents whose kids ride the bus with mine. So of course H wants one. I refuse to shell out that kind of money, even for birthdays or christmas. H has a track record for loosing hats, coats, lunchs, pencils, book reports..you get the picture. No way was I paying for an IPOD.
Howie got one for Christmas, which means I inherited his Nano ( I also lose things, to be fair, so I won't buy a nice one for myself, either ). So I had an old IPOD Shuffle that I thought was broken. Lo an behold, I fixed it ( umm, I mean, I CHARGED it.) and it works. So H inherited that one with the ground rules that it doesn't go on the bus or to school and we OK any song on it. I downloaded it with some of his favorites like the Ohio State fight song, We Will Rock You, that "Bad Day" song they played on American Idol ad nauseum but is now on some football commercial he likes. We vetoed Eminem, Soulja Boy, Kanye West. This is a great opportunity to brainwash your children and guide their preferences while we still have a chance. On went the Beatles, Bare Naked Ladies, U2, REM, ABBA, Manhatten Transfer, Maroon 5, The Dixie Chicks, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, and no, no Nirvana. I'm trying to get him to understand that not all music originated from Guitar Hero. M is convinced that Wolfmother ripped off the song "Woman" from Guitar Hero.

4. Deodorant. Until I volunteered in the school, I didn't realize that at about 4th grade, kids start smelling funky. Not like outright B.O., just funky. I swore that this would never be my kids. Guess what? Yesterday I picked up the boys for a field trip, and H had been out side in 50 plus degree weather playing soccer. Funk? You bet. So we made a trip to Target just to pick out deodorant. I don't think they make Teen Spirit any more. He and Howie picked out some nice smelling Degree.

This was a big deal this morning, putting on deoderant for the first time. So much so that he forgot his lunch.

Happy 10th Birthday.

First Snowstorm of the Year...or the post where Howie almost goes postal.

About a week after we moved, we decided that a new snowblower was in short order given the size of Howie's new driveway ( or runway, as our builder liked to remind us ). Our old one was on its last leg, and we weren't sure that it would work here even if it was up and running. My brilliant idea was to wait til after the first of the year, as we usually don't get that much snow before Christmas, and we were waiting for some rebates that were coming to us from Home Depot for the purchase of the W/D and Fridge.



Fast forward to last Sunday, and 6 inches of drifting of snow. Our first inclination was to send the boys out with shovels, however we forgot that we left our shovels at the old house. Howie managed to get to the old house and get the shovels, and sent the boys out again while he tried to get the snowblower started. No such luck.



Guess which store in Northwest Ohio has snowblowers on December 16th, after the first real storm of the year? NONE! Not Home Depot, Lowes, Andersons, Tractor Supply. Not even on-line. I question the wisdom of retailers who don't stock merchandise in real time need. (Ex.. when I tried to buy Halloween candy at Target ON Halloween and they were stocking Christmas candy. I had to resort to buying all of the leftover crap in the clearance aisle.)



We finally found a store over by my parents house in Oregon called Maumee Bay Turf that had two snowblowers left. However it was 4:45 pm and they closed at 5:00. No way we were getting to Oregon in 15 minutes, it takes 20 with clear roads. We had them hold it til Tuesday, as Howie worked til 7:30 on Monday.



Murhy's law that Howie didn't get home til 9 pm on Monday, and got stuck in the very unplowed driveway. How embarassing in a new neighborhood where everyone's driveway is plowed within and inch of it's life. I imagined people peeking out of their windows and laughing us as we spun tires and blew smoke trying to get his car out. Luckily a neighbor did finally come out and help, and we ended up using my Pilot to push his car out onto the street.



Tuesday ( Which incidentally was my birthday, but I find comfort in the fact that Saturday we went out for a very nice dinner and I got a very nice gift, but still, it was my birthday). I got E ready for her christmas party, and left early to drive out to Oregon to get the blower. We were running late, and drove through Wendy's for lunch. ( I am convinced that people gain weight over the Holidays not because of cookies and fudge, but because of the drive thru as we are all too freaking busy to eat normal meals ) . Got her to her party/ pageant in which she refused to sing, and got her home. Howie was supposed to be home at 3:30 so I could get to a Dr. appt for a neck strain. However, Howie didn't get home until 5:30, which meant I had to take a 3 kids and the snowblower to the appointment. Got back home around 6:00, and met a very irritated hsband who couldn't get the snowblower started for lack of a key. The key which they forgot to give us. That was back in Oregon at the shop that closed at 6:00. Howie called the shop, and the very nice owner said that he would drop the key off at my parents and Howie could pick it up. So he loaded E in his car and off to Oregon he went. This was a man on a mission. I took M and H to basketball practice at 7pm. At 7:30 Howie called me to say that the guy never showed up with the key and he was leaving to come home. We met at Applebee's at 8:30 for a much too late, very depressing dinner.



Yesterday , the owner called me to profusely apologize about forgetting the key. It seems that his wife was irate with him because he was running late he had promised her they would get a Christmas tree that night. ( They probably stopped at Wendy's for dinner. )

I ran out to Oregon once again to get the almighty key. Key in hand, was sure that a clear driveway was in the imminent future. Got home, and the boys got off the school bus. This was the last day before break, and M left his boots at school. Loaded all 3 back into the car to get over to the school before it closed for 2 weeks. Got the boots. Howie called to say he might be home before 10pm. He got home at 9:45 and crashed.

I might have a clear driveway tonight.

First snow in the new house.

She lasted about 5 minutes outside. She hates getting wet, sticky, muddy, cold, or otherwise inconvienienced. But her friend Emma was outside playing, so she had to go too. This was cute. Notice M's Dolphins hat on her head. ( The Dolphins are mildly more tolerable to the rest of us Browns fans now that they have Ted Ginn Jr. )