A couple of quick updates I have to post:

1.  After just one episode, your favorite new show and mine, “Secret Talents of the Stars” was CANCELLED!!!  Just kidding.  At least about the favorite show part – this awful show was actually cancelled after airing just one episode, and we will never find out who wins.  Boo-hoo.  Probably would have been a bigger disappointment to waste more time watching it than it will be not knowing which celebrity won.

2.  I did some research, and didn’t find anything about the Starburst commercial (see my Mediocrity post) and whether or not it stars Steve Buscemi – just LOTS of speculation on the internet, no definite answers – but I watched the commercial again, and I no longer think it’s him.  Unless he’s found a way to age in reverse, that is.  But the actor in question definitely seems to be imitating him, and should probably look into getting a paid gig as a Buscemi impersonator, if he hasn’t already.  Sorry for the misinformation.

It may be cold and rainy outside, but the weather has not affected my emotional state inside!  I’ve had an awesome day!  It is our ninth wedding anniversary today, and so far, the day has been just short of perfect.  The only thing that could make it better is if we could be together all day, but of course with 3.5 kids to support, it’s unrealistic on a weekday to take off work.  Besides, we were able to have a fun family day together yesterday in between the dental work and the tantrums of our 3-year-old.

Today, my husband has left love-note post-its all around the house for me to find.  He sent me a sweet e-card, and I really love the church sign he put on tangents.org of our wedding day.  My almost 18-month-old daughter even let me have a peaceful lunch today – I didn’t even have to interrupt my own lunch once to get her anything and usually I have to get up between 5-15 times!  Oh, wait, I did have 1 lunch “interruption”, but I wouldn’t even call it that.  The doorbell rang with the delivery of a gorgeous vase of flowers my husband sent me for our anniversary!  And lately, the smell of fresh flowers has been completely relaxing for me…  it must be the pregnancy.  I’ve always loved flowers, but lately they’re almost like a drug when I smell them!  So, walking past the eye and nose candy on the dining room table is also keeping my spirits high.  We were going to celebrate with a nice dinner and a night out, then come home and watch the first new Office episode in MONTHS, but the other day, we found out tonight is the monthly meeting for the board of a community agency with which we volunteer – wouldn’t you know April’s meeting had to be tonight!  But no matter…  we can still go out around the meeting, go to the meeting together, and in the age of VCR’s, computers, and all of that, we will find a way to catch the Office later.  So thanks to all the well-wishers who’ve written and called – we’ve had a wonderful day and we will see you next year at the big 10-year anniversary BASH!

If you’ve been to a movie in the theater lately, you may have noticed a very clever and funny Starburst commercial they play during the previews with Steve Buscemi called Ernie the Klepto.  If not, see it here, but watch carefully, the humor is subtle at first and happens quickly!

If I had to name my most useful kitchen tool, I think I would probably choose my retractable Sharpie.  Sharpies are those permanent markers with the thin tip – they’re very useful, and you can use them without making a mess of everything unlike regular permanent markers.  Well, some genius invented a retractable Sharpie – no cap to mess with, just click the end and it’s ready to use – a brilliant invention, really.  I used mine in my kitchen multiple times daily for various things – until it up and disappeared!  I used it mostly for labeling the date on leftovers, among other things, and I had even grown to love the clicking noise it made…  how I miss that!

I have a few suspects; namely three little girls who have been trying to get their hands on my retractable Sharpie since I got it!  But I have no real leads, and no idea where to look for it.  All I know is that I miss it!  Like I said, I used it several times per day, and it’s just not the same to have to open the cap on a regular Sharpie.  Actually, last night I was physically unable to open the cap on the regular Sharpie – had to have my husband do it – because it was on too tight and I injured my finger.  Since I only had one free hand at the time, the retractable Sharpie would have come in handy yet again!  In fact, this will have to be a short post since it hurts to type everything with my left pointer finger ever since I sliced the tip off the other night.  I told you I was terribly uncoordinated – see my previous post if you don’t believe it.  Which is why I NEED my retractable Sharpie back!  If you’ve seen it, please contact me ASAP!  Tipsters will remain annonymous!

All my life I’ve had to deal with a less than optimal anatomy.  In Kindergarten, my teacher wrote on my report card, “lacks hand-eye coordination.”  Not lacking in hand-eye coordination, she definitely wrote LACKS – as if I didn’t have any at all.  My vision hasn’t been the best and neither has my hearing for that matter; due to the multiple ear infections I suffered as a toddler.  The LACK of hand-eye coordination followed me all throughout school.  There were all those skill tests we would have to take every year in gym class…  you know, the mile run, flexed arm hang, shuttle run, 50 yard dash, long jump (the long jump was only a clever name for when people like me tried to take that test and could barely get off the ground, much less produce a long jump), etc.  The weeks we did those tests were the most dreaded weeks of the year for me.  Not only would I look pretty stupid trying to do them, but I would always fail miserably.  They actually based your grades for those tests upon your scores and not upon how hard you tried.  Mine were always off the scale F’s.  Luckily, they weren’t enough to bring my gym grade down too low because I was always a pretty good student and to have that ruined because I LACKED hand-eye coordination, now that just wouldn’t be right.

Now, as an adult, it doesn’t really matter how fast I can run back and forth between 2 lines on the floor while stopping to stoop and touch them.  Not that I’ve tried, which only proves how unimportant something like that is…  but it seems that all those years of falling physically behind my peers has been made up for me by a “gift” my adult body has bestowed upon me: huge, viable veins!  Every time the lab people at the Dr.’s office have to draw my blood, they are extremely impressed by my veins.  In fact, I am often the talk of the lab – hey, Karen, come over here, look what I’ve got to work with! 

Today I had a student drawing my blood (oh, great, just what I wanted to see, someone about to pierce my skin with a needle who is in training to do so!  I realize they have to learn somewhere, but why do they have to learn on me?), and the nurse jokingly told her, wow, you could draw that one in the dark!  Haha, hehe, but please, let’s not try that!

Anyway, I don’t mean to brag to anyone who is less endowed in the vein department, but it’s just nice to finally get my due after falling so far behind physically in every other way for so long.  And it may seem unimportant to you, but I make a lot of friends at the lab this way, and also, my veinly gifts are very useful in my life.  Having had four pregnancies and 2 cases (hopefully only 2; I will find out soon if there will be 3) of gestational diabetes, that means there is lots of blood being drawn from me!  I get poked and prodded so often that I’m starting to think that my veins are actually fun for the lab people to draw from…  or maybe it was no coincidence that the student lab technician had me as a patient to draw from today – maybe they’ve secretly made me the lab student assignment for the hospital!

I should probably introduce myself, but right now I want to talk about something else. I might introduce myself next time. Anyway, I have a friend who at the moment is having a big decision to make. Her brother and sister-in-law have invited her down to Texas to be a live-in-nanny. Her brother is going over seas and her sister-in-law, I guess doesn’t want to come up here, like originally planned. I have a feeling that it might have something to do with me. I was friends once with my friend’s sister-in-law, but as seeing as she married my ex, she feels like I still want him back. If she comes up here, I believe that she is worrying about running into me after all she has said about me. I have been willing to forgive her, but she doesn’t want me to talk to her, so I have just let is slide right now.

Now, where was I? I seemed to have digressed. My friend doesn’t know what she wants to do. She has so many friends up here, plus her family, but jobs seem to be scarce up here and she needs money to keep going to school. School is expensive and she needs to continue to make money. I have been searching for a job for awhile now, but nothing seems to be available for me. Well, except if we both want to be truck drivers. 🙁 So, hopefully something will help her with her decision and we will still stay close while she is away.

We bought a new car back in November, and we’re very happy with it.  But I have to admit, there is a feature I forgot to check when car shopping – how is the reception for WGN radio AM 720?  Translation: will I be able to catch the Cubs games being broadcast all the way from Chicago?!?

Luckily for me, the answer is yes!  Since baseball season was over when we bought the car, it didn’t occur to me to check for this very essential feature in a vehicle.  But today, the radio’s ability was tested because as the family errand-runner, the only way for me to be able to catch any of the Cubs game was in the car between picking up kids from school, taking them to and from piano lessons, the library, etc.  Not only did the Cubs game come in, but it was even better than the lousy reception our old Ford mini-van picked up last year.

So BOOLYAH!  Now I am even happier with the new car and also ecstatic that I got to hear the Cubbies avoid a series sweep by the Milwaukee Brewers today.  To quote Harry Caray, CUBS WIN!  And to quote a friend named Morat, Everyone Wins!  Ok, everyone wins who doesn’t drive a Ford that is…
😉

And now for some youtube fun:

VIDEO 1: Bloody Tennis Tantrum

WHO: Mikhail Youzhny, a professional tennis player
WHAT: Tennis racket vs. forehead
WHEN: Monday, March 31, 2008
WHERE: Sony Ericsson Open – Key Biscayne, FL
WHY: ?????
COMMENTS: If you are bored by tennis, the real fun starts about 30 seconds into the video.  Make sure you listen to the announcers’ commentary on the incident – hilarious!

VIDEO 2: Drunk Hamster

WHO: Someone’s poor (?) hamster
WHAT: repeatedly doing flips
WHEN: Not important
WHERE: The Hamster’s cage
WHY: Is he really drunk?
COMMENTS: I don’t condone cruelty to animals, of course, but this is so funny…  And he seems to be doing it because he really LIKES doing it.  He doesn’t seem to be getting hurt.  The theme song works well with the action.

Video 3: The Price is Right April Fool’s Day Joke

WHO: Drew Carey and Rich Fields vs. a contestant named Lisa
WHAT: A contestant bids on a fake showcase
WHEN: April Fool’s Day 2008
WHERE: Los Angeles, CA
WHY: April Fool’s Day prank
COMMENTS: I can’t believe the contestant didn’t get the joke earlier…  guess she was distracted by being on tv, that happens.  Wish I could hear what the audience was saying during the prank!  Were they giving her bids, telling her it was a joke, what?

I guess it depends on what you would call a good town.  A place we used to live called Naperville Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago, was once considered a good town.  It had lots of fun things to do, relatively low crime, good schools, and lots of money.  It was never my ideal place to live, however, because it was always way too crowded and had way too much traffic for my tastes.  But I never considered it a dangerous place to live…  until yesterday.  Being from the Chicago area and having friends and family who still reside there means I maintain an interest in keeping up with their local news.  Yesterday I came across the following newspaper article about a murder that was committed in the neighborhood where we used to live:  Man Shot, Killed in Naperville

In a city the size of Naperville (about 10 square miles, with a population of over 140,000 people), this incident might not appear to be as shocking to the normal reader as it was to me.  However, having lived in this neighborhood only about 7 years ago, I can’t believe how much it has changed.  We lived in a small townhome; it was very nice and backed up to a school.  It seemed like the perfect picture of suburbia at the time.  It was VERY over-priced for what I would expect to pay for a 1.5 bedroom where I live now, (we paid $1380 rent a month, and our place was not more than 650 square feet), however at the time I thought it was worth it because it was a “nice” area and close to family in a place I thought would be safe to raise kids.  Needless to say, I was wrong on that account.  In the article about the crime, the newspaper drew a nice little map.  Turns out the victim (who had an arrest record himself – not that I’m judging, just noting) lived not more than 2 blocks from our old home.  The victim’s body was found 5 blocks from our old home.  We used to take our daughter for walks around the area all the time; there was a Walgreens we used to walk to right near where the body was found.  Readers who posted in the comments section of the story say how the area has become “seedy”, and in the article itself, they state that the victim’s home was a “high traffic area”.  All of this adds up to a place where I would NOT want to raise kids, let alone pay through the nose for a small place to live, only to have to worry about protecting my family from the violent crime that seems to have invaded the area.  Some might say this is an isolated incident; they can say “this can happen anywhere.”  That IS true.  Anything can happen anywhere.  However, one can now say that it can happen anywhere, but it DOES happen there.

It truly makes me thankful every day that we’ve now found such a wonderful place to call home; away from the city and its crime, pollution, and expenses, not to mention how superficial and just downright unfriendly the residents of a town like Naperville can be.  It’s baffling to me that they charge EXTRA to live in a place like that!  It makes me feel really good knowing that when my kids grow up and want to raise children of their own, they will have the option to stay in the wonderful town where they grew up.  I did not have that option, since I grew up in a town next to Naperville, and it is no longer a good place to raise children.  If my kids want to spread their wings and fly away to explore the world and see what else is out there, that is fine.  I will miss them of course, but I am quite confident that if all else fails out there,  they will always have the option to return to the place where they grew up to live safely and prosperously.  Country living is not for everyone, I guess, but I don’t think I’ll ever understand those who choose to pass up utopia for city life 🙂

Yet another April Fool’s Day surprise awaited us when we got home tonight…  seems the newest addition to the family is a little jokester.  Our dog Beesley, who we’ve had for almost a month now, is an escape artist.  We have a little mud room in the back of the house that leads to the garage, and if we don’t lock the dogs out of it, Beesley can push open the door leading to the garage and escape.  Apparently, tonight was one of those nights when we forgot to make sure the dogs were locked out of the mud room because when we got home and opened the garage to pull the car in, out runs Beesley.  We corralled her into the car, and that’s when we saw it – a HUGE mountain of garbage in the middle of the garage, along with several smaller hills of doggie-doo.  Seems during her great escape into the garage, she decided to tear apart the garbage that was in there waiting for garbage day.  Of course, being a family of 5, we have lots of garbage, including lots of dirty diapers.  Seems little Beesley had herself such a feast that she immediately had to add doggie-doo to the mess without waiting for us to come home and let her outside to do her business.  Compounding our luck had this happening on a Tuesday, which is only 2 days before garbage day, so we had just about as much garbage out there as was possible.  I’ve been trying to convince Hubby that we need to buy one of those mega garbage cans just to store our garbage in until garbage day ever since the local squirrels discovered we have a parrot who discards nuts into our garbage.  They sneak into the garage constantly and tear little holes in the garbage bags to get at the nuts.  But at least they’re dainty about it, which is more than I can say for Beesley.  It’s just difficult to justify spending money on something that you’re going to put garbage into – it’s like literally throwing money away…  or the reverse actually, but still…  maybe now we’ll be able to justify that expense a little better.  April Fool’s – Beesley style – YUCK!

And a side note about April Fool’s Day from our local paper.  No one knows how April Fool’s Day came about.  There’s a theory that it originated when the Gregorian Calender was adopted in the 1500’s.  Seems there were a few folks stubborn about adopting the change of New Year’s Day from April 1 to January 1, so others made fun of them, pranked them, and sent them on fool’s errands, hence the origin of April Fool’s Day.  That is just a theory however, but equally amusing and NOT just a theory is how the country of Scotland celebrates April 1st.  Apparently Scottish April Fool’s Day jokes often focus on the buttocks and the day is known as Taily Day.  According to our local paper, the “butts” of the Taily Day jokes are known as April “Gowk” which is another name for Cuckoo bird, and it’s believed the ole “kick me” sign gag originated with these Scottish customs.  I think I’ll stick with good old April Fool’s Day, thanks, though this year in our house, I guess you could call it Taily Day!