random - expletive Tuesday.

For once, Tuesday doesn't suck! A few of my friends know how much I dreaded Tuesdays for a long time. It was the day I always had a couple of unpleasant things every week, and on top of it all it used to be the night every week that Mike was out of town. Seriously, if something was going to go wrong..... it ALWAYS did on a Tuesday.

They've gotten somewhat better now that two of those unpleasant things are out of my life, but every now and then something still manages to remind me that Tuesdays should just be banned.

Except today. The weather is perfect. I think Arizona is actually getting a spring this year, a U2 DVD is playing while I clean my house and get some other jobs done, the kids are all happily back in school and best of all Mike is on his way home from New York right now!

Nothing really exciting to report about. We had a nice spring break with the kids even though we didn't go anywhere this time. Mike was home most of the week, so it was nice just to be a family and go see movies, have lunch, go to the park and ride bikes. To me that was much better than anything else. We all got to connect again, which with this crazy year is something huge for all of us. Thank goodness though, this first year is almost over and life should get back to normal with Mike's schedule and we won't be living on separate coasts!

There are so many things that are reminding me right now of the changes in the past year. Piper (who is snoring at my feet) has been here a year, we were on a cruise this time last year, Mike has been with his airline for a year, and I'm still the same weight. Ha, even though I swore I wouldn't be by the time it was short weather again. At least I can count on that being a constant. ;) But hey, I'm even working on that now. In very teeny tiny baby steps.

Happy Easter!

Before. Poor little eggs. That is a big pot too, there are 3 dozen in there!


Waiting for the bath:


After.

Ah yes, I'd like to imagine a perfect Norman Rockwell holiday moment in my head when I originally buy the Paas coloring kit for Easter each year. And usually by the time we have finished coloring eggs and I get a chance to breathe a little, seeing them happily lined up back in the carton is a happy sight.

But sometimes my kids don't share my perfect vision. First, the OCD in me has a hard time when the dye starts flying. (Please no messes!! No spills!)

Then there are the inevitable screams of, "I called GREEN first!" like each egg is going to suck all of the color out of the glass and there will be no more GREEN left. *gasp!*

But then there is also the preparation that goes into this activity that ends up taking all of 15 minutes. Buy eggs and make sure you have a good carton with no broken ones, carefully get them home, boil water, forget the timer while they are on the stove until small child comes running in to say, "The eggs are on FIRE!" (They weren't, the water was boiling and popping the lid up while hissing and trying to put out the gas fire. Man, I really hate cooking.) Rinse eggs, watch color pellets dissolve in vinegar (my favorite part!) Measure water, drop in eggs. Wait.

Trevor even asked me, "So.... why do we color the eggs if we're just going to peel them soon so we can make deviled eggs for tomorrow?"

Good point there T. I don't know. Because it is FUN! Right? Aren't we all about having FUN?

I think we did. We have all stopped to admire their work every now and then. Besides, it gives me something to blog about. ;)

Happy Easter!

Meet at least three out of four. Zippy, Tilly, Lily and Ferb.

Sorry about the bad photo.

Here are my frogs. I say my frogs because I actually adore these things. Yeah, they live in Megan's room and she feeds them. She doesn't want anything to do with touching them, so we came up with a fair trade with chores. But I check on them at night right after checking on the kids before I go to bed.

After I cleaned their little habitat, I fed them and watched them for about 30 minutes. (Yeah, time went by that fast or I'm that bored.) But watching our little habitat is a lot like watching people. It's sometimes better than cable. I think we have three males and one female. The females are light, and the males are dark and spotted. Now that they are bigger you can tell the difference between them better. That, and that the female still seems to have a bigger tummy than the rest. So either she's just fat (isn't that just like regular life?) or she's still pregnant. I need to go find out the gestation for african dwarf frogs apparently.

Anyway... so as the flakes of food are floating at the top or sinking at the bottom, she's trying to get herself a piece. They eat really slow, not like fish, they float up to it and 'freeze' so they don't look like prey themselves. Then they snatch it really fast. But the boys won't let her get a piece. They float up underneath her and bite her little webbed feet!! Then she darts out of the way and the males eat the food. Typical males. Steal food from the maybe pregnant female. She just keeps going to another corner hoping to find her own piece. She did get some eventually. But it was interesting to watch.

Now I don't mean this to sound like a man hater post, but it did remind me of one time when I was pregnant. I mean I was literally close to divorce after saving one last piece of bacon on the side of my plate to eat after I ate all of the sweet pancake stuff at a breakfast out. I had already eaten a few other pieces first, but I wanted to save this last piece. It was the perfect piece too. The filet mignon of bacon.

Mike reached over and ate it!! I was so mad! You stole bacon from a pregnant woman? WTH is wrong with you!??!?! He thought I wasn't going to eat it since it was on the corner of my plate. In his defense he did get me some more bacon, and he never deprived me of any craving. I'm sure some pregnant hormones had a little something to do with the whole thing too. ;)

We still joke around about the bacon. But I've come to the conclusion that male humans aren't that much different than male frogs.

spring break begins!

It is officially spring break! I'm excited about having the kids home this next week. Mike will even be here for most of it, so I have pretty high hopes for the week.

Today was gorgeous, and we got a new frisbee for the dog. She's such a doof, and not the most agile of retrievers, but hey, she brings it back at some point.

I'm noticing a trend here too. There are a lot of dog pictures. I'm not favoring and Megan and Piper right now, but for some reason both of my boys are done with the camera. I sense I'm going to have to start bribing them soon.

We really do have exciting lives. I always love when somebody says to me, "Your husband is a pilot, that must mean you get to travel a lot!" Not so much.

I used to. And trust me, I'm craving to get away right now. Of course now that I can fly just about anywhere I want to for free. But... there's the whole thing of kind of wanting the other spouse there too. This period with the airline he is at is difficult, but hopefully when it is over we can go somewhere. Until then... my favorite place is still:

Target. I love this little sign. I don't know why, but I had to take a picture of it this morning just for the heck of it.

I'm looking forward to a whole week of sleeping in past 6:00 in the morning, not worrying about homework, and getting lunches and backpacks ready every night. :)

:(

Last Wednesday my grandma had a stroke that left her with quite a bit of damage to her brain. I found out that due to her wishes of not wanting to be resuscitated, that she wouldn't be recovering.

Today is a sad day, as she is the last of my grandparents. She passed early this morning. I'm happy that she's been reunited with her husband who I know she missed so much. She always talked about him and how much she missed him. So I find a lot of comfort in that.

Since it had almost been a week since the stroke until today, I have been thinking so much about her. I know there were always big occasions (Christmas, birthdays, etc.) but it is all of the little moments that have been flooding my mind the past week.

My grandparents had the best house in the world to play at when I was little. I remember the huge backyard with St. Augustine grass that felt so good on bare feet. I spent hours in that yard hunting and catching lizards, smushing tiny snails, and playing on some huge wooden spool that was the size they use for cable. We'd flip it over sideways and run in the middle of it so that it would roll across the yard like lumberjacks.

There was a canal across the street where I would take a wheelbarrow and a shovel, fill it up with the hermit crabs that lived on the banks of the canal, take it back across the street and play with them all day making amusement parks for them. Then at the end of the day I'd wheel them back and toss them back in the water again. I caught my first fish in the canal.

I also remember taking baths there and thinking how incredibly great my grandma was for always having bath crystals that turned the water blue. I can still remember exactly what that box looked like, because one time I dumped the entire box into the tub. But even after that, she still always had them for me. And Mr. Bubble. After a day of playing with Florida wildlife, I probably really did need a bath.

They had a lava lamp that I would stare at for hours on a piano that my grandpa played. He used to love to play it, and loved more than anything to make up silly songs. He's the one who came up with K, E, double R, Y... Kerry Lynn Reddingaling. And even though my sister will probably kill me, her song was "down by the river where the green grass grows, there sits Kimberly picking her nose." These were always always followed by my grandpa's unique laugh. I can still hear it. Today my sister talked to me and said that she knows that my grandpa had spent the last 5 years up in heaven just waiting for my grandma with some silly song to sing to her when she got there. If there is a piano in heaven, that's where they are at right now.

Lots of good memories in that house. My aunt and uncle were by far the coolest in the whole wide world too.

My last memory of that house was when we were getting in the car to move out west. My grandma made me a butter and jelly sandwich and a glass of orange juice. I honestly can remember trying to drink out of that little juice glass with a huge lump in my throat.

Of course there are a million memories of them coming out to Arizona to visit, after we moved out here too.

So these little thoughts are zooming around in my head. Some make me laugh (quiche me Kerr! My mom will know that one!) and some make me cry. This photo was taken the last time I saw her when she came out to visit. It didn't seem that long ago until I realized how small my kids look in that photo. Although I talked to her on the phone often I still can't believe that was the last time I saw her. She really took a liking to Matthew. He sat with her the entire time she was at my house.




So tonight, I had to go outside and wait for the moon. Every now and then when I'd be talking to her at night on the phone (and I do this with my mom sometimes) I say, "Look up at the moon." Then when I'd know she was looking too, I'd say, "Now we both are looking at it at the same time." It was a fun way to connect across the country. I don't think it was any accident that while I was waiting for the moon to come up, that we had one of the most amazing Arizona sunsets. I watched the sun go down on this crappy day, and without trying to sound sappy I really hope that she's in heaven looking at that same moon with me tonight.

I miss you grandma. Love always.

And mom, dad, Kim and everybody in Florida, I love you and miss you very much. I wish I could be there.

A Piper post for the dog inclined....

Piper is one cool dog. - and actually officially one year old right about now. We got her in April last year, and she was 6 weeks old.

I was thinking the other day how labs are often used in search and rescue, leading the blind or like our neighbor lab who is a bomb sniffing dog. (He even has a badge on his collar, it's so cute!) but why is it that my lab doesn't seem like the type cut out for that kind of work? Maybe it's the training that we've given her, which is pretty much family dog stuff. Sit, stay, get off the couch, don't eat off the counter.... she's pretty, and she's sweet, so she was obviously cut out just to be a great family dog.

She's smart at times, but there have been a lot of times I imagine if she could ever be a search and rescue dog. Yeah, only if the missing had tennis balls in their pockets. She lives for tennis balls.

But this thing she does with Megan gives me warm fuzzies. Not long after school, or on the weekends they go up and down the street with Piper pulling Megan on her scooter. Sometimes I ride along side on my bike, and it is cool how Megan doesn't even need to move both of her feet off of the scooter. (Only for stopping.) She'll keep them going at a pretty fast pace all the way. This is what I tried to accomplish with my dog when I was Megan's age... only he was a daschund. We never made it that far. ;)

Happy birthday Piper!

Wow. American Idol tonight dawg.....

(A little Randy Jackson there)

I always watch this show with the kids. Tonight was 80's night. What's his name (He bores me, so I can't even remember his name.) sings a Wham song and Megan asks me, "MOM! Do you remember that song from when you were a little kid?"

Yeah sweetheart I remember that song. I was in high school. Not so much a little kid. I'm officially ancient to my kids. Wonderful.

David Cook. OK I'm officially in love with him after that version of Lionel Ritchie's Hello. I actually even rewound it to watch it a few times. Blew me over.

Most of the guys are great. I'm not loving any of the girls. Tonight was an exceptionally great episode.

Yeah, the 80's rock.

And speaking of the 80's, yesterday I almost wrote about this but it seemed way too random for a blog post. Remember back when you’d occasionally see a strung out wad of cassette tape that had been pulled out of the plastic cassette, flapping in the wind (and usually stuck on a tumbleweed) You used to see that all the time.

Thanks dad.

My dad sent me this in an email this morning. It was funny, so I thought I would share.


Airline cabin announcements All too rarely, airline attendants make an effort to make the in- flight "safety lecture" and announcements a bit more entertaining. Here are some real examples that have been heard or reported:

1. On a Southwest flight 245 (SW has no assigned seating, you just sit where you want) passengers were apparently having a hard time choosing, when a flight attendant announced, "People, people we're not picking out furniture here, find a seat and get in it!"

2. On a Continental Flight with a very "senior" flight attendant crew, the pilot said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached cruising altitude and will be turning down the cabin lights. This is for your comfort and to enhance the appearance of your flight attendants."

3. On landing, the stewardess said, "Please be sure to take all of your belongings. If you're going to leave anything, please make sure it's something we'd like to have.

4. "There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways out of this airplane"

5. "Thank you for flying Delta Business Express. We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride."

6. As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Ronald Reagan, a lone voice came over the loudspeaker: "Whoa, big fella. WHOA!"

7. After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms in Memphis, a flight attendant on a Northwest flight announced, "Please take care when opening the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that , sure as hell everything has shifted."

8. From a Southwest Airlines employee: "Welcome aboard Southwest Flight 245 to Tampa . To operate your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seat belt; and, if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised."

9. "In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with more than one small child, pick your favorite."

10. "Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but we'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than Southwest Airlines."

11. "Your seat cushions can be used for flotation; and, in the event of an emergency water landing, please paddle to shore and take them with our compliments."

12. "As you exit the plane, make sure to gather all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among the flight attendants. Please do not leave children or spouses."

13. And from the pilot during his welcome message: "Delta Airlines is pleased to have some of the best flight attendants in the industry. Unfortunately, none of them are on this flight!"

14. Heard on Southwest Airlines just after a very hard landing in Salt Lake City. The flight attendant came on the intercom and said, "That was quite a bump, and I know what y'all are thinking. I'm here to tell you it wasn't the airline's fault, it wasn't the pilot's fault, it wasn't the flight attendant's fault, it was the asphalt."

15. Overheard on an American Airlines flight into Amarillo, Texas, on a particularly windy and bumpy day: During the final approach, the Captain was really having to fight it. After an extremely hard landing, the Flight Attendant said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Amarillo . Please remain in your seats with your seat belts fastened while the Captain taxis what's left of our airplane to the gate!"

16. Another flight attendant's comment on a less than perfect landing: "We ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the terminal."

17. An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door while the Passengers exited, smile, and give them a "Thanks for flying our airline." He said that, in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment. Finally everyone had gotten off except for a little old lady walking with a cane. She said, "Sir, do you mind if I ask you a question?" "Why, no, Ma'am," said the pilot. "What is it?" The little old lady said, "Did we land, or were we shot down?"

(This next one is my favorite!!)
18. After a real crusher of a landing in Phoenix, the attendant came on with, "Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats until Capt. Crash and the Crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching halt against the gate. And, once the tire smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silenced, we'll open the door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal."

19. Part of a flight attendant's arrival announcement: "We'd like to thank you folks for flying with us today. And, the next time you get the insane urge to go blasting through the skies in a pressurized metal tube, we hope you'll think of US Airway s"

20. Heard on a Southwest Airline flight. "Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to smoke, the smoking section on this airplane is on the wing and if you can light 'em, you can smoke 'em."

21. A plane was taking off from JFK after it reached a comfortable cruising altitude, the captain made an announcement over the intercom, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to Flight Number 293, nonstop from New York to Los Angeles The weather ahead is good and, therefore, we should have a smooth and uneventful flight Now sit back and relax.. OH, MY GOD!" Silence followed, and after a few minutes, the captain came back on the intercom and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so sorry if I scared you earlier. While I was talking to you, the flight attendant accidentally spilled a cup of hot coffee in my lap You should see the front of my pants!" A passenger in Coach yelled, "That's nothing. You should see the back of mine."