The Countdown Continues

My eyes are going buggy from trying to locate more Spanish worksheets to print off for the boys while I am gone. I have a few and need several more...

Other than that, things continue apace in preparations for Ye Trip to Merrye Olde Englande!

A few unexpected obstacles, but yesterday I baked two batches of bread. Over ten loaves in the freezer should hold everyone, as long as Ethan doesn't devour too much by way of French toast.

Also mixed up a batch of cookie dough. And with the 3 loaves of banana bread, two portions of cookie bars, two sections of Trevor's birthday cake, and the brownies I hope plan to bake, they should be set for snacks.

Eight meals in the freezer, the fixin's to make one more....throw in scrambles eggs or leftovers, and they should be all set for food.

I hope to pack today, as well as clean the kitchen. Some extra things have thrown a wrench in the works but I still think I can get it done.

Loren has been working on cars and such, as well as practicing every night for an upcoming gig :-)

Swing music. Unfortunately, it will take place while I am flying out of Chicago. Boo! I will miss my favorite number, Sing, Sing, Sing. Oh well.

By the time I get the instruction sheets and lists and everything made out for the crew, Trevor and Nolan may end up getting more school done when I'm away...

It does give one pause.

Speaking of which, must do history with Trevor.

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Trevor Turns 12, Part 2

Next gift....8 Hardy Boys books!

Last of all, in a large box....what could it be?

Something to fulfill his dream of portraying Moritmer McMire

Loren identified it as an old motorcycle helmet

And there he is, in helmet and surrounded by blankets and books. If he runs out of reading material he can always go back to the Calvin & Hobbes on the footrest. I'm sure he hasn't read it more than 40 or 50 times.

With the exception of the one "Dragon" book, everything else came from Goodwill :-) You just have to be there at the right time. And "Mortimer McMire" is a character from Commander Keen, as was the neural stunner on the cake.

Happy Birthday, Trevor!

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Trevor Turns 12, Part 1

Since Nolan designed the "neural stunner" he wanted to be in the official "cake" picture

This, however, is the official birthday boy, Trevor

Almost got all the candles in one blow

Oh boy! Another "How to Train Your Dragon" book (#7)

Since I am driving out to Indiana this Thursday, it was a mutual decision to bump Trevor's 12th birthday up from Wednesday to this weekend.

The meal included: Cocktail smokies, cabbage salad, deviled eggs, and Texas sheet cake with ice cream.

I got to eat the salad, anyway. And Loren had a very small portion of the smokies. So yeah, upper middle age continues to get better and better.

Was able to light all the candles with one match, helped at the end by the flame taking shape at two different spots, neatly coinciding with two candles set closely together. Probably the highlight of my day, lighting two candles at once.

If I think about it, I'll get a photo of the picture Nolan drew for the neural stunner. He is quite the artist.

More pics in a bit...

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Jeans Shopping: The Good, the Bad, and the Part that Makes You Want to Crawl Under a Rock and Cry

Taking advantage of a lull in activities, one activity being the weather, Ma took herself to "The Cities" for a bit o'shoppin'.

On the docket: umbrella, jacket, comfortable walking shoes (my tennis shoes from fall are cracking), jeans, and a device-by-which-ungainly-rolls-of-fat-are-scrunched-up-to-look-less-bulgey-by-means-of-winches-ratchets-and-self-performed-liposuction.

That last item turned out to be the easiest.

The umbrella a little harder.

The jeans excruciating.

The shoes annoying and disappointing.

And right here I would like to give a shout out to the companies who make "skinny" jeans and "super skinny" jeans. A little message from women over 40:

"It's not that we hate you so much, as despise you and hope that you're forced to sit in the back of a plane in one of the tight, little seats for an 18-hour long flight."

Every week.

Without air conditioning.

That might make us feel better, for a start. It would take care of approximately .0000012  the penance needed to compensate for your ludicrous attempt to make our lives difficult.

Other than that, I'm good.

But I may have pulled a couple of muscles, getting in and out of things....

Goodwill went fine, however! I came away with 9 items for 21 dollars :-D

7 were half-price ($2.00). And one of the full-price items was new, with an original tag close to $40.00!

Ka-ching....Ma wins, again :-)

Then it was off to the mall, with its promise of good walking shoes.

The mall actually failed to live up to its promise, for which Ma is rather ticked. I did end up with a pair of "maybe these will do" on clearance, from Gordman's. I found the overall shoe market to be slim, for size 9 to 9.5.

But if I thought shoes were hard, the jean hunt was worse.

Why do we need seven different degrees of skinny? Not to mention a sparsity of length variation.

"Ma'am? Do you have any jeans for short people?"

The young, goth-decorated, semi-conscious clerk replied, "That would be over in the (blah, blah,blah) section."

No one said it directly, but I detected a definite whiff of "Los-er!" in the conversation. And those jeans were weird. Even the size ZERO.

(why don't they just be honest and label them "doll-sized" ?)

I decided to return my 3 Liz Claiborne clearance sweaters to their rack and hit up another store ("Ha, ha ha, sweetheart!").

"Goodbye," Penny's. "Hello," Younkers!

Two words: Gloria Vanderbilt.

I came home with two workable items. Originally $48.00 and $58.00 respectively, I got them both on clearance for a total of $34.75 .

Who da Ma?  I say....WHO DA MA?!?!

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Ma's Excellent Adventure to a District Nigh Unto or Closely Encountering the Northwoods, Reloaded

Oh boy, it's the Museum of Art! Just not this entrance.

Minneapolis skyline, as seen from inside museum.

Fair amount of art, just in the architecture.

Snowman on top of building. What's not to love?

Yes, Ma is now the proud owner of a Samsung GALAXY Tab 3, or as we in the techie world like to say, "One of those things that you can swipe your finger over and look cool!" Free crossword app. I think I'm in love.

(wow. All the pictures loaded, first time....had to be an accident)

We packed all kinds of activities into Saturday! And that doesn't even include my coffee and WONDERFUL breakfast toast. Ardith and Justin said it was just normal, whole wheat bread from the
grocery store....so, EVEN THE BREAD TASTES BETTER IN MINNESOTA!

Kendra popped up from her apartment and we all ran en masse to Half Price Books. Yippee! Oh my but I love that store. Ma came away with the usual great buys from the clearance section (really, I cannot help hitting that part first. My folks grew up in the Great Depression and I think there's something in my genes...)

Actually can't tell you ALL of what I bought, since a few items will be saved for birthdays, but aside from selections of Dostoevsky and Dickens, I picked up a shrink-wrapped 4 CD set of the velvet fog himself, Mel Tormé :-D

After the bookstore we all tooled over to Best Buy for Ma to check out notebook possibilities. Yes...I know! 

 Loren suggested I might want to get something so I could communicate with people when I hit the hotspots in England, next month. I can hardly wait! And look, it even has crosswords! Justin clued me in to several free apps. I'm waiting for my protective case to arrive, then I'll use it more often without fear of droppage.

After a morning of boosting the economy, we headed over to Punch Pizza for lunch. Like I said in the last post, really superb pizza. Quick service and get this...they have COKE products.  Practically perfect, I'd say.

As if that weren't enough, we headed over to the free Museum of Art. Mercy, there was not nearly enough time (or energy) to see even a quarter, but it was lovely, just the same. Would like to take the boys up there some day. Nolan would go crazy looking at the jade carvings.

Sooner or later, though, we had to go back and rest up from all the excitement. Ma spent a fair amount of time snuggled up on the side couch, getting acquainted with her amazing 7-inch notebook of coolness. Justin was instrumental in helping me navigate and learn.

Leftover pizza for supper and a couple of Sherlock episodes to catch me up on the storyline.

It doesn't get any better than that :-)

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Ma's Excellent Adventure to a District Nigh Unto or Closely Encountering the Northwoods (take 1)

 Schroeder the needy king-cat with his obliging master, Justin

This picture, depicting deepish snow in St. Paul, is posted solely to make Ethan jealous :-)

Pizza, from Punch...you would not believe how good!

Yes, this is the place owned by the guy who was sitting in at the SOTU. The employee was on site,but I decided to let him work rather than take his picture.

In an unbelievable stroke of luck, the pictures finally posted! (I don't know what the deal is with Google/Blogger but you guys have seriously made my life more difficult!!)

Anyway...I had a great time up in the twin cites last weekend, with Ardith and Justin. Oh my, SO nice not to have responsibilities.

Had a great time seeing Kendra, too, who just happened to have that whole weekend off, as well.

We all ate supper together that night, and lunch the next day, as well as wonderful snacky foods, inbetween. Justin knows the way to a Ma's heart via Bliss chocolate mint...yummo!

After Saturday morning's festivities at Half Price Books, courtesy of a gift card from A & J, more fun was had, but that will have to wait until the next post (with more pictures!....should only take a couple of weeks to get Blogger to work, ha ha).

But I wanted to mention something about the pizza: these come to your table in very quick fashion, due to being baked in a 900 degree oven. Simple but delicious ingredients...wow, recalibrated my whole concept of pizza taste. And the little charred/burned places on the crust are equally scrumptious. Mmm, mmm, mmm!

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Olympicamigraindastria

Not sure but I think that's a real country!

I do intend to get pictures up from my wonderful weekend but had a wee bit of trouble with Picasa. Still, I will.

The kids, all three of them, are clustered in the living room, awaiting the start of the opening ceremonies that are already over.

Having discovered a few nuggets online of what did and did not happen, I am keeping my mouth shut like the good, former conservative I am.

In recent history, we just returned from another exciting venture into the world of coldiness to get groceries.

From the looks of it we are safe.

One nice accompaniment was the celebratory Beatles' songs playing on the oldies station, in preparation for this weekend's 50th anniversary of the British invasion.

Good stuff! Though Trevor failed to hear his favorite, The Fool on the Hill, which, contrary to popular belief, is not referencing me.

Another momentous happening of the day was buying Nolan jeans. I had high, high hopes at Goodwill because we managed to pull five potential pairs off the rack, several of which had 34 inch waist.

These were all too snug, leading me to believe he has grown since last week.

However, after perusing Wal*Mart's less than extensive collection, of which there were exactly two pair with size 35 waist (but not long enough) we discovered "Relaxed Fit," the answer to a large lad's prayers. 34x34.

Needless to say, there was nothing from an older brother that could be passed down.

So that coup, added to finding a reversable belt to fit Trevor's small frame (on SALE!) brought the department store foray to a successful close.

Well, it's been almost 30 minutes but the broadcast of  Opening Ceremonies still has not commenced. On a happier note, I have not needed headache pills since this morning...hoo hah!

Perhaps I should think about supper...

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